[PD-dev] [ANN] mostly for devs and tcl'ers: tclpd

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Wed, 24 Oct 2007, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:

> I am not saying that I like the current symbol system.  I am saying that 
> I don't think it is appropriate to change the behavior in only certain 
> places. That just leads to more confusion and bugs.

Therefore, you want us to change the behaviour so that it becomes 
inconsistent with how C-based externals behave, so that it fits more your 
interpretation of Miller's intent than what Miller actually designed as an 
external API.

So, you are the one who is trying to change the symbol system or the atom 
system.

> For now, I think it would be a good idea to have the Tcl API match Pd as 
> close as possible.

Therefore, Federico did the right thing, and you just contradicted 
yourself?

Pd has two different policies in practice: by its mishandling of 
float-looking symbols, it seems somewhat typeless, but that's only when 
writing to a file or socket. At the t_atom level, within Pd patches and 
messages, Pd is very strict on types. Externals use the t_atom level only. 
So far, Tcl has received things using the other policy, because it's 
across a socket, but server-side Tcl shouldn't be like that.

When considering only the t_atom level, Tcl and Pd are not much alike. 
Where they have most in common is the use of dollar for substitution, 
semicolon for message separation, space-delimiters for atom separation, 
and an overall preference for simple syntax designed in several layers.
That's why I've been mentioning a special Tcl/Pd affinity in the past.

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| Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801, Montréal QC Canada