[PD-dev] Call for help: Pd-0.39.2-extended

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Feb 15, 2006, at 6:26 AM, Tim Blechmann wrote:

> hi hans, hi devs
>
>> start working on Pd-0.39.2-extended.  I plan a number of big changes,
>> like namespace support improvements, and moving to Tcl/Tk 8.4.12 on
>
> i like the idea of namespaces (actually, i think, it's one of the most
> important features, pd is missing), but i want to warn about
> implementing them in one branch of pd only, since they are a change to
> the pd language, not just another interpreter feature ...
>
> a namespace, that's only a feature of extended, not part of vanilla,
> devel or desire (yes, it seems, we already have 4 pd branches, although
> devel and desire are closely related) would result in language
> inconsistencies ...
> ever had problems like: "this doesn't compile with gcc/msvc", "please
> use (insert your favorite scheme interpreter here)" ...
>
> imo a namespace should be implemented to all flavours of pd, not only
> one ...

I totally agree, and thankfully it is already in all flavours of Pd,  
unless it was specifically removed from pd-devel or desire. This is all  
based on "geiger namespaces", which is basically taking advantage of  
the fact that you can use relative paths in objects, i.e.  
[cyclone/counter] instantiates pd/extra/cyclone/counter.pd_darwin.  The  
libdir patch is a way to make libraries out of folders so that help  
files are supported also.

To see some related, minor changes, check out  
externals/loaders/import.c (quick hack), and  
packages/patches/libdir-0.38-4.patch (another quick hack).  I plan on  
implementing the libdir patch as a t.grill loader for a more permanent  
solution. IOhannes submitted a patch to further support namespaces:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php? 
func=detail&aid=1403917&group_id=55736&atid=478072

The next step, which is the only big modification to the core that's  
needed AFAIK, is to make each patch have a local namespace.  Kzrysztof  
outlined how that could be done on the list, but no one has implemented  
this yet.  The interface for this is an other question.  So in the  
meantime, you can use [import] as a workaround.

.hc

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