[PD] "object" or "class" in pdpedia

Frank Barknecht fbar at footils.org
Thu Sep 13 15:32:39 CEST 2007


Hallo,
Frank Barknecht hat gesagt: // Frank Barknecht wrote:

> This is a "me too"-message from me: For the same reasons as Thomas I'd
> prefer to stick with "object". While "class" is more correct, I think
> the difference is something only computer scientists are interested
> in and Pd has a tradition of not always following the path of
> mainstream computer science anyway, because it's not a tool mainly
> targetting computer scientists but one targetting artists. I'd say,,
> reserve the term class for pd-dev.

It occured to me that it may sound like I'd try to "dumb down" Pd for
artists, which is not my intention, so I'd like to clarify a bit: 

We're talking about what term to use in pdpedia for the descriptions
of the available building blocks for patches, mainly externals and
abstractions. When building patches, what users (scientists and
artists) deal with, are objects. The only thing you can do with a
class when building a patch is to make an instance of it: an object of
the class. 

So in the pdpedia context using the term "object" for the list of
building blocks in my view wouldn't be wrong at all. As "object" also
is the term that is generally used when talking about Pd patches
here--as in: "Just put an [osc~] object into your patch to make a sine
wave." Nobody says: "Instantiate the [osc~] class to make a sine
wave."--it is perfectly valid to use "object/symbol" on pdpedia. IMO
at least.

Ciao
-- 
 Frank Barknecht                 _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__




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