[PD-dev] Re: Restructuring of CVS/externals

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Fri, 3 Feb 2006, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:

> Encapsulation is the key to writing good software in any language, call
> it functions, procedures, methods, objects, abstractions, subpatches,
> whatever. If you are writing patches that don't fit on 800x600 using
> long names, I think you need to encapsulate more.

Well, it's not that much the total space of the patch than how much it's 
possible to have wires not pass under objects, so that the diagrams stay 
clear. Because we don't have segmented patchcords either, you know.

Somehow, patching requires two-dimensional use of the surface, but some 
things just seriously indent that space just because there's a lot to 
write in a single object box, e.g.:

[#inner (4 4 # 76 -44 128 0 150 -85 -108 0 29 128 -21 0 0 0 0 256), seed 
128]

now how can i have two boxes like that side to side in a 800x600 page? 
Note that newlines are allowed in objectboxes, and are properly ignored, 
but they get so ignored that they don't even survive a save/load. Else, 
I'd gladly write it like:

[#inner (4 4 #
  76 -44  128 0
 150 -85 -108 0
  29 128  -21 0
   0   0    0 256
), seed 128]

like it ought to be, anyway.

> Its kind of like saying we should all turn our screens 90 degrees so that we
> can write longer functions in C. ;)

When dealing with some people's C code, it wouldn't be a bad idea...  
combined with smaller fonts of course. I mean especially those situations
where you can't improve the encapsulation, because it would be considered
a "cosmetic" change and then rejected.

> > > And its also now pretty clearly established in computer science that
> > > clear naming saves much more time than short names.  Its all about
> > > avoiding bugs.
> Yes but clear names tend to be longer.

I've got a question for you.

Why did algebra switched to a very terse notation during the 16th century,
and that, for most purposes, scientists and engineers haven't looked back
much ?

I mean, why did geometers start to write "a²+b²=h²" instead of writing
"the square of the length of the adjacent side plus the square of the
length of the opposed side equals the square of the length of the long
side" like they used to do ?

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| Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801 - http://artengine.ca/matju
| Freelance Digital Arts Engineer, Montréal QC Canada