[PD] declare [was: Re: Idiomatic Pd]

[marius schebella]

Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> If we want to have namespaces working, then I suggest we use the  
> tried-n-true model of other languages.  If people are really  
> interested in experimenting with ideas of how to handle namespaces,  
> then we could try other options.  Either way, we should start by  
> getting the tried-n-true model working first, IMHO.  Then if people  
> want to experiment with things like inheriting namespaces from the  
> parent, there will be a solid, working foundation to build upon.

what's the tried-n-true model? and why is expanding namespaces to 
(sub)classes not part of tried-n-true? I think an inheritance model 
should be introduced into pd.

declare is intended to load libraries or objectclasses only locally 
(only available to the patch that holds the declare object - since 0.41 
this should be the case.)

for nested abstractions there are three possibilities: (1) don't inherit 
anything, (2) inherit from parent to child, (3) inherit from child to 
parent. (or several declare options that allow all three possibilities.)

I would like to "vote" for solution 2. but I think there are technical 
problems with this option: afaik it is not possible to "overwrite" a 
declaration. for now it is first come first serve. so if an abstraction 
inside a nested patch wanted to use a certain objectclass which is in 
conflict with the parent patch, that would just not be possible.
and another problem seems to be that abstractions get loaded first, so 
the first come - first serve works even worse right now, because it 
loads declarations of abstractions before the parent patch.
please correct me, if I am wrong.

I see usecases for method (3), too. if you want to throw a certain set 
of declarations into all your patches as abstractions. but I think this 
causes more problems than it solves. what if you have two conflicting 
abstractions in parallel, that both try to set the namespace for the 
parent patch?

marius.