[PD] teaching PD to newbies [WAS: Re: [GEM] GEM users request ]

[guenter geiger]

On Thu, 24 Apr 2003, derek holzer wrote:
> ... i.e. they want to know about
> signal processing, making big noises and pretty pictures. an approach
> which goes backwards from said pretty pictures and big noises could
> teach them the very powerful message-handling side of PD "retroactively"
> so-to-speak. sneak in the data-stuff without them even realizing it,
> instead of slamming them up against all these abstract numbers and
> symbols first thing.

If something like this would exist, I would definitely use it if I
have to give presentations.

Most people actually learn pd this way. They start out from something
that already exists and learn by changing things. The danger of this
approach is of course to miss some fundamental feature, but a tutorial
designed top-down, could take care of this and cover everything.

Learning is much more efficient if it makes fun....

Guenter