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

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Feb 13, 2006, at 7:13 AM, IOhannes m zmoelnig wrote:

> Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
>> On Wed, 8 Feb 2006, IOhannes m zmoelnig wrote:
>>
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>>
>> man atan2
>>
>> And then tell me how many args it takes in C. Then try it in Perl,  
>> Ruby,
>> whatever. It's all the same. It's a two-input operator. So let it  
>> behave
>> the way two-input operators do.
>
> i do not see how this contradicts my earlier mail.
> obviously, "atan2" takes 2 arguments, but they can be seen as parts
> (real/imag, nominator/denominator) of _one_ value ("numeric entitiy" or
> whatever the math name would be, i dunno)

> therefore i (still) think that "atan2" is kind of an unop, even though
> it needs 2 values, in any language.
> for various reasons (lack of imaginary numbers, history,...), atan2 is
> implemented as binop in most (if not all) languages.
>
> a variable "ö" would be written in most prog.languages (except java,  
> but
> who writes java...) with 2 letters, even though it is really a single
> letter. so what?

Whatever the definition of atan2() or atan2 in math, [atan2] in Pd has  
two inlets.  All multi-inlet math objects accept arguments and have a  
bang method except for [atan2].  This is not a math question, this is a  
computer science question.  Pd should be a flexible system that makes  
as few assumptions about how people are going to use it.  Pretending  
[atan2] has one inlet is violating this idea.

.hc

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