[PD-dev] how math objects respond to a bang

Hans-Christoph Steiner hans at eds.org
Wed Feb 8 15:28:29 CET 2006


On Feb 8, 2006, at 4:55 AM, IOhannes m zmoelnig wrote:

> Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
>>
>> On Feb 7, 2006, at 4:32 PM, zmoelnig at iem.at wrote:
>>
>>> since this is not needed it is not there for unops.
>>
>>
>> [clip] has 3 inlets and [atan2] has 2 inlets, so they are not unary
>> operations.  [clip] and [atan2] have their own classes, so that's  
>> easy.
>>
>> It just seems consistent to have them all respond to a bang.  Then you
>> could get the last result easily without knowing when the last input
>> was.  But I can live for now with the unary operations ignoring bang.
>> I do need [clip] to respond to a bang tho.
>
> i did not mention [atan2] and [clip] in my arguing for good reasons...
>
> i agree that [clip] should respond to bang.
> i am not that sure about [atan2]: personally i think that atan2 is a
> unop (the values are just there for get all 4 quadrants) and the 2nd
> inlet shouldn't be there at all.

I think that the interface should be consistent.  Part of the strength  
of Pd is that converts math into an interactive exploration.  You don't  
need to know anything about what atan2 is to hook up two sliders and  
see what it outputs.

In order to highlight this strength, the interface should be consistent  
whenever possible.  When the interface is consistent, it makes it very  
straightforward to play around with all these objects.  This something  
that Cyrille and I are trying to highlight with our mapping library.  
(externals/mapping)

> as for getting the last result, why not use a [f] _after_ the object?
> this way you don't have to retrigger the "costy" operation.

Of course, its always possible to use a [float], but that won't  
recalculate when you change the number on the right inlet, i.e. this is  
not possible:

|
[t b f]
|    |
[atan2]
|

Yet changing the number on the right-inlet changes the output.

.hc

> mfg.asdr.
> IOhannes
>
>>
>> .hc
>>
>> ______________________________________________________________________ 
>> __
>> ____
>>
>>                   ¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!
>>

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