[PD] puredata evolution

[Charles Henry]

> Because it's cheaper to implement.
>
> If well done, it's also an intermediate step towards automatic threading.
> It's important to cut hard goals into easier goals, because it reduces
> required investment and gives quicker returns.

I think that's a very good point.  It could also lead to some new
insights into the problem as a whole, during testing.  Top-down design
is usually difficult because of misc problems you will find later on.
I am curious... what kind of changes do you think would have to be
made to allow this function?

I can imagine this explicit threading as a new type of sub-patch,
which could be invoked in the same manner as [pd new_subpatch].  You
could let the original process handle all the memory allocation, and
switch on the new thread once its dependencies are satisfied.

> Also, I wouldn't trust automatic threading to make use of the CPUs in the
> best possible way all of the time, *especially* for real-time.
>

I would have to say... there's just no replacement for actually
measuring the performance and making adjustments.  but you'll always
be limited by the rate you can make the modifications yourself.  So,
some kind of algorithm could be used to optimize performance, say,
genetic algorithm style, or heuristic search.  So that you would
create a patch which is intended to be used in a parallel arch and
then you just sit back and let the computer try to optimize it by
actually computing a bunch of cycles and taking measurements.
Given that it's just a far off idea (to me), it's too soon to really
discuss optimization :)  but if the computer were to actually take
measurements and choose the best, I would trust the computer to do it
faster/better than I could

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> | Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801, Montréal QC Canada
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