[PD-dev] proposed new "list" object

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Wed, 20 Jul 2005, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:

> Since there are currently no core Pd objects that use the [obj action]
> syntax, I think we should try to avoid introducing it for a number of
> reasons.  For example, I think these functions would work fine as
> individual objects, and in many cases they would be generally useful
> with things besides lists, like undefined sets for example.

What's an undefined set?

What does it have to do with Pd internals?

How would it be represented in memory?

How is polymorphism a key feature of Pd ? e.g. why does [pipe] only allows 
floats, and not other kinds of atoms ?

What would you like as other changes to other Pd internals so that become 
consistent with that vision of polymorphism ?

> >     list cat - build a list by accumulating elements
> This could be done simply with [prepend] or [append] and a list storage
> object.

Except that [list cat] has the opportunity to do n appends in O(n) time 
instead of O(n^2) time. In the first decade of Tcl there was only a O(n^2) 
means, namely "set a [concat $a [list $b]]", but then proc lappend was 
added because the situation really sucked.

> It would be nice if these functions worked with all sets, not just
> lists. That's the way [zl] works.  It could work so that if it receives
> lists, it will output lists.  If it receives undefined sets (i.e. sets
> that begin with a symbol) then it would output sets without "list"
> prepended.

Oof, so that's what you call "undefined sets" ? why have you chosen that 
name?

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