[PD-dev] pd-extended loadlib request

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Jan 16, 2008, at 1:03 PM, Russell Bryant wrote:

> Frank Barknecht wrote:
>> And how to discern between one-object-per-file object files and
>> many-objects-per-file library files?
>
> AFAIK, there is no way to do so algorithmically.  I was just  
> thinking I would
> stick my many-objects-per-file libraries in their own directory and  
> use autoload
> to load them all.
>
> Anyway, it was sort of a quick thing.  I wasn't sure if it would  
> end up making
> sense and being useful, so that's why I brought it up.  But it was  
> my first
> attempt at making something a little easier than installing  
> symlinks per-object
> or using -lib to load larger libs with multiple objects in them ...

With Pd-extended, the goal is to use the libdir format for  
everything, then making sure that the libdir format is well  
supported.  The first part is almost done, there are only a handful  
of exceptions (Gem, PDP, PiDiP...), the second part is a work in  
progress.

I don't necessarily object to including this autoload functionality,  
but I wouldn't use it at all in Pd-extended.  Here's the way I think  
this should work in the near future:

- use a default preferences file to load the libs in the same order  
on all platforms.

- allow patch-local namespaces which can override the global  
namespace.  This will allow people to load libs in a custom order  
without having to change the default preferences.

The part that remains to be seen is whether the global namespace  
should have no libraries loaded by default, like Java, etc. do, or  
whether it is ok to have a standard set of libs loaded by default.   
The later would be easier for newbies, but may cause more headaches  
with distribution and name clashes.

.hc

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