[PD-dev] outlet_anything() & threads

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Wed, 17 May 2006, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:

> Max/MSP is a very high quality production tool without strict adherence
> to the Max paradigm.  For example, JavaScript for GUIs instead of
> graphical programming,

The old MAX doesn't strictly adhere to the Max paradigm either.  
Externals are coded in C and C is not dataflow. Just because C is C
doesn't mean you have to ignore that a lot of things get written in C just
because there is no alternative (perceived or real). There's this
double-standard by which C doesn't count as violating the paradigm while
anything else may.

> and the use of threads rather than trying to stick with the real-time
> scheduling.

how do you find the difference between a principle of the paradigm, and a
limitation of an implementation? Why do threads necessarily fall outside
of the Max paradigm? Would the "Max paradigm" be any different in your
eyes if Miller didn't hate threads? How are threads necessarily
non-realtime scheduling? How is realtime scheduling necessarily
non-threaded? Have you ever looked at a realtime operating system like QNX
which handles threads/processes in a thoroughly realtime way? What is the
status of that kind of feature in Linux, OSX and Win32? What can Pd's
scheduler do about priorities, time limits and preemption without getting
itself to use the OS's threads?

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