[PD] counter + list of objects

[Luke Iannini (pd)]

On Jan 12, 2008 1:18 PM, Frank Barknecht <fbar at footils.org> wrote:
> Many abstraction collections are sloppy when handling this. (Even
> abstractions by pd-extended advocates can forget to always fully
> specify the full names of abstractions with import or a prefix.  I
> don't want to point fingers, but to illustrate what I mean: In the
> "mapping" library max_n.pd uses [maximum] from Cyclone undeclared,
> disjoin.pd uses [float_argument] from purepd undeclared etc.)

The abstraction collections are sloppy because they can be, I think.
Since Pd-E, by default, loads nearly everything into the global
namespace, one can easily be lazy when developing abstractions.

I know Pd-E does this to be as easy as possible to set up for new
users, but at the same time perhaps it is best that a new user sticks
with the vanilla objects anyways, and if they're really interested in
more objects, they can learn how to use the directory prefixes or
[declare].  Python is the only language I have experience with that
has a wonderful namespace system, and I think it works greatly to its
advantage.

So, on that note, I think it would be best to choose some truly
essential objects as the beginning of a base (global by default)
library, which should be periodically updated as new objects outgrow
their libraries in popularity.  A nice counter would be a good start :
).

Just as a note, it would be pretty easy to do a find/replace on the
entire pd-extended tree for those objects with unique names.

Finally, every time we talk about things that I would like to be
helping to fix, I itch for Subversion.  I've said it before, but I
have continually put off getting any comfort with CVS because I always
think the move to SVN is a couple weeks away : ).  Not to mention, Pd
is the only project I know of that still uses CVS, so learning it
would be very expensive to my brainspace.

And finally finally, has the [declare]/libdir/etc. practice been truly
sorted out?  A nice wiki entry describing correct usage would be a
huge help, if so.

Cheers
Luke

(oh, one more thing... it would be cool to have an auto-generated
"meta" file that /is/ added to the global namespace, so i could type
[mapping], and opening it shows a list of all patches in the [mapping]
dir.  And if, in the object help files, a special comment was added
with a description, that could also be lifted out and put in the
metafile next to the object.  This would be analogous to Python's
docstring/help(fxn) system.)