[PD-dev] proposed new "list" object

Frank Barknecht fbar at footils.org
Thu Jul 21 00:16:00 CEST 2005


Hallo,
Miller Puckette hat gesagt: // Miller Puckette wrote:
> There's a delicate problem with "list" sprouting an inlet to store lists...
> what do you do when someone "bangs" it?  If "bang" is to be considered as
> the same thing as an empty list, then the correct thing would be to replace
> the stored list with an empty one, then output it -- but that would make it
> impossible ever to get the stored list back out!

That's indeed a delicate situation, which I didn't think of. 
> > A further suggestion by me would be to maybe add a kind of combination
> > "list first" and "list last", that is: Give "first" a second outlet
> > wich outputs the rest of the list. 
> > 
> Seems like this would be a great convenience.  Maybe I should just omit
> "list first" and "list last" and replace them with a "list split" that
> splits it in two at any desired point.

I think I'd prefer "split" over "first" and "last" (but maybe the Lisp
people would even prefer something else... ;)

> My own motivation is to make it possible to write libraries such as
> RRADical (especially RRADical!) without needing to include other libraries
> (which is confusing, especially because of the two competing "prepend"
> objects.)  So if you can name any other functionality you'd need beyond
> what's here I'll certainly want to put it in.  (Not even limited to the
> list object...)

I did a little check what externals I used in the state savingi part
of RRAD, and those are not many. In fact, apart from OSC and [pool] I
only depend on "prepend" and for some OSC-related operations I use
fromsymbol/tosymbol to modify the first element of a list (change
"/s/c 1 2 3 ..." to "/o/s/c 1 2 3 ...")

I think, having OSC available as internal in Pd could be very useful:
It has become a kind of standard for communication between
(multimedia) software and IMO is now almost as important as Midi-IO. 

A kind of more general key/value container (like an extended
textfile/coll/qlist) also is something, that many people seem to look
for and only find in externals as coll, pool, pbank, etc. 

Ciao
-- 
 Frank Barknecht                               _ ______footils.org__
             
          _ __latest track: "plak" @ http://footils.org/cms/show/44




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