[PD-dev] cyclone and uppercase

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Mar 11, 2009, at 7:25 AM, Claude Heiland-Allen wrote:

> João Pais wrote:
>> another detail: while creating objects, line~ is different from  
>> Line~. but while searching for help, it isn't. maybe than's a bug?  
>> try with append / Append.
>
> I think this is down to your operating system / file system not  
> distinguishing between line / Line / lInE / LINE / ...  so when Pd  
> searches for a help file, the operating system returns the first  
> match which might not be "sufficiently accurate".  It's likely in  
> that OS/filesystem that you cannot have line~-help.pd and Line~- 
> help.pd in the same directory, because they have "too-similar" names.
>
>>> Frank Barknecht wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Any comments or objections?
>>>>
>>>> Objection, judge! :)
>>>>
>>>> Some of the uppercase objects in Cyclone are there so the don't  
>>>> clash with
>>>> builtins. Line~ is different from line~.
>>>
>>> and has been lengthily discussed on this list: aliasing will  
>>> eventually
>>> override already existing classes (including internals). so you get
>>> cyclone's [Line~] when you really want [line~].
>
> Yes, I second this - no more aliases, especially ones that don't add  
> any value!

I also think that aliases are a bad idea in general, and I think we  
should always try to avoid them, but this is a special case where  
aliases seem to make sense.

The central and stated aim of cyclone is to provide Max/MSP  
compatibility.  As of Max/MSP 4.5 or maybe 4.6, they downcased all of  
the objects.  Therefore, in order for cyclone to remain compatible  
with recent versions of Max/MSP (we're talking like 5 years old), it  
should also work with the downcased names.  If someone can come up  
with a better way to support this, I am all ears.

As for Line~ versus line~, you can load the cyclone line~ by using  
[cyclone/line~].  Really, this issue again highlights why we should  
have a single library format for all objects and a single method for  
handling library loading order, something like namespaces.  Cyclone  
does have some method for overriding internals, but its some black  
magic that no active developer knows much about.

.hc


>
>
>>> fgkasdr
>>> IOhannes
>
> Claude
>
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