[PD-dev] pd-double: how to selectively build external libs for development?

[katja]

On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 6:09 PM, Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at> wrote:

> If you want to have default preferences loaded, which load libraries, etc.
> at startup, you should be able to copy the Pd-extended prefs file and stick
> it into two levels down from the 'pd' executable, i.e.:
>
> pd-svn/pd/src/pd
> pd-svn/org.puredata.pd.plist

Well in this case it doesn't work, it's still reading
~/Library/Preferences/org.puredata.pd.plist. I've used a local plist
before, but that was within an .app directory, and even then it's
tricky. For test patches, I'll use namespaces anyway, think that's the
best way to ensure the appropriate executables will be loaded within
all sorts of test builds.


> Ok, I think for now, we can just force double precision on all platforms,
> and skip the bitness detection.  That'll give you and me a nightly build we
> can test with (I run Ubuntu/natty 32-bit and Mac OS X 10.5).  Then once we
> have nailed down complete double precision builds, we can work on the
> auto-detection.  How does that sound?

For several reasons, it sounds like a good idea to focus on double
precision builds now:

- double precision Pd can then easily be tested by anyone on any system
- it's confusing when single precision builds are called Pd-043.1-double-etc.


There's however a small issue to reckon with: at the moment, the only
way to force double precision compilation upon the external libs, is
to hardcode #define PF_FLOAT_PRECISION 64 in m_pd.h. If we put it in
pd-double git that way, a comment in the code should say that it is
done for testing purposes, and the install readme should also mention
this explicitly. If double-precision-ready Pd will ever be united with
vanilla Pd, which is the intention with no doubt, single precision
will be the default again for reason of continuity. Only when double
precision Pd-extended will be seriously available, and tried by
several people, there will be discussion about whether distributed
builds should be single or double precision, or both etc. We'll have
plenty of time to consider pro's and cons of possible scenario's, and
find way's to implement them.

Anyway, for testing purposes I think default double is the best we can
do now. Shall I do that, and also update INSTALL.txt?


> Also, do you ever use IRC?  I'm in #dataflow a lot, I'm _hc there. Its a
> great way to work thru a lot of these kinds of dev setup issues.

I'll register to #dataflow to start with, good idea. But you know
often I need so much time to sort things out, that the mailing list is
fast enough for me...

Katja