[PD] style guide idea: [send foo] versus [; foo(

[dmotd]

hmm.. generally this could be a good idea, but message sending is most useful 
when initialising a number of receives ie:

[loadbang]
  |
|; init-1 6          /
|; init-2 symbol foo |
|; init-3 -2         \

which is far more elegant than the the trigger/send replacement, especially 
with more fields..

i think its important for students to recognise that this feature of messaging 
has a role to play, rather than trying to veil its use. in my experience 
people will tend to use [send foo] more often when they start pd, then begin 
abbreviating to [s foo] before they appreciate the msg shorthand [; foo[. but 
you are right it is a little confusing for new users..

perhaps this just needs clearer documenting? 'what does a semi-colon at the 
start of a message mean?' in the FAQ? 

dmotd

On Friday 20 March 2009 10:38:06 Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> Here's something that I'd like to propose for the style guide, based
> on my teaching experience:
>
> - use [send foo]  instead of [; foo( for all sends that aren't
> dynamically set
>
> A lot of people find the [; foo( syntax confusing, and since it is
> commonly used, it often gets in the way of newbies understanding the
> patch.  While the [; foo( syntax is definitely useful for dynamic
> sends, I don't think there is an advantage to using for the regular
> sends.  So for example:
>
> [dsp 1(
>
> [send pd]
>
> instead of
>
> |;                /
> |pd dsp 1 \
>
> This change highlights the dataflow aspect of the messages over the
> text-style programming with syntax of the message box.  At the very
> least, I think that the help patches should use this style, and I have
> started to use this style in my regular programming and it feels quite
> natural once you are used to it.  I find it easier to read.
>
> (as for [s foo] versus [send foo] that's an issue I want to avoid in
> this discussion).
>
> .hc
>
>
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