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

derek holzer derek at x-i.net
Sun Apr 27 22:12:14 CEST 2003


I've also been enjoying this thread quite a bit! I have an idea which I 
would like to float by the list. A couple years ago, when I was working 
a bit with Reaktor, I spent some time on a user list where they had 
little "contests" to build different kinds of synths. One thing I saw a 
lot in the Reaktor-world was that there were a lot of user- and 
commercially-developed patches in existance [the ones from Lazyfish 
stand out as the really unique ones] that one could take apart and learn 
from.

Now, PD is different from Reaktor in many ways, and PD users also 
probably want to do different things than emulate classic synths with 
such rigor as Reaktor users, but why not provide the PD community with 
"ready mades" for simple tasks which they can dissect and learn from 
those who have already mastered the program? There are already a few 
very nice abstractions out there, with Looppool and Console being my two 
favs. Let's add to the collection.

So, my proposal is this:

A friendly contest to build a few end-user tools in PD and GEM.

These tools could be things like this:
---a video mixer for two files, with effects
---a video processor for an incoming stream, with effects
---an audiomixer for two files or incoming streams, with effects
---an event sequencer, with randomization, shuffle and a few banks of 
presets
---other ideas?

These tools should not be dry, programmer's demo-patches, but should be 
creatively engineered instruments which give way to many artistic 
possibilities, and inspire new users to explore the possibilities of PD 
as a programming environment.

These tools should be abstractions, not externals.

The abstractions should be cross-platform, and therfore use only common 
external libraries: GEM, IEMlib, GGEE and Zexy. [Please note: this is 
not to invalidate the hard work of all the amazing external programmers 
in the PD world, it is simply to keep the demo patches as accessible as 
possible to a new user, and to keep them from getting lost in tracking 
down, compiling and configuring tons of externals, which may or may not 
work on all platforms, to use something... Looppool is, unfortunately, a 
classic example of this....]

The abstractions should contain enough internal documentation [comments, 
etc] to make them understandable for a new user to dissect them.

Once a decent collection of these abstractions has been made, they 
should be effectively intergrated into the PDDB, PDDP, CVS and IEM pages.

please let me know what you all think of this,
Derek





bbogart at ryerson.ca wrote:

>Fantastic idea,
>
>I will be working on a few tutorials myself soon.
>
>I suppose we should design a template for tutorials to keep things standard,
>
>anyone with documentation experience have any suggestions? an initial thought would be following Chris's format with html plus example patches...
>
>Ben
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at eds.org>
>Date: Sunday, April 27, 2003 11:28 am
>Subject: RE: [PD] teaching PD to newbies [WAS: Re:  [GEM] GEM users request ]
>
>  
>
>>It would be really great if we could combine all of the existing 
>>tutorialsout there into one coherent, navigatible set of 
>>tutorials.  Just like PDDP
>>is becoming the central repository for docs, and the CVS is the 
>>centralrepository for externals, there should also be a central 
>>repository for
>>tutorials.  
>>
>>I think that the tutorials and PDDP should ultimately be part
>>of the pure-data.sf.net CVS.  It makes working collaboratively much
>>easier than if these files are spread out all over the net.  
>>
>>Once this
>>semester is over, and I get some breathing room, I am going to 
>>make a
>>"Getting Help" section for pure-data.org with links to all of the 
>>docs and
>>tutorials I can find.  If all of the docs and tutorials were
>>interconnected and easily navigatible, that would be an amazing
>>resource.
>>
>>.hc
>>
>>On Fri, 25 Apr 2003, David Sabine wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Hello all,
>>>
>>>This type of idea is inline with my eventual goal for the PDDP 
>>>      
>>>
>>files.> 
>>    
>>
>>>I have felt that it's very important to, aside from brief and 
>>>      
>>>
>>precise> explanations of the inlets/outlets and arguments of each 
>>object, offer at
>>    
>>
>>>least one example of the object being used in a real and typical 
>>>      
>>>
>>situation.> I haven't written any complete tutorials, because I 
>>haven't felt that it was
>>    
>>
>>>part of the PDDP mandate -- however, I've been able to offer some
>>>'real-world' examples of the objects in context.
>>>
>>>As tutorials are written and completed I would like to provide 
>>>      
>>>
>>web links in
>>    
>>
>>>the PDDP to relevant tutorials.  For example, if an online 
>>>      
>>>
>>tutorial shows a
>>    
>>
>>>typical usage of [loadbang] (or anything else), then the 
>>>      
>>>
>>[loadbang].pd help
>>    
>>
>>>document should provide a link to that tutorial.
>>>
>>>Obviously, [loadbang] is rather straight forward, but other help 
>>>      
>>>
>>files would
>>    
>>
>>>benefit a lot from online tutorials.
>>>
>>>For those writing these wonderful tutorials - I would appreciate 
>>>      
>>>
>>if you
>>    
>>
>>>contact me if you feel any of the PDDP files deserve a link to your
>>>tutorial.
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>>Dave Sabine
>>>
>>>p.s.: I like this thread a lot.  There have been some good ideas 
>>>      
>>>
>>- many of
>>    
>>
>>>which are possible, important, and will make PD a more valuable 
>>>      
>>>
>>and useable
>>    
>>
>>>tool for all users.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>PD-list mailing list
>>>PD-list at iem.kug.ac.at
>>>http://iem.kug.ac.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pd-list
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>	zen
>>          \
>>           \
>>            \
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>PD-list mailing list
>>PD-list at iem.kug.ac.at
>>http://iem.kug.ac.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pd-list
>>
>>    
>>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>PD-list mailing list
>PD-list at iem.kug.ac.at
>http://iem.kug.ac.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pd-list
>
>  
>







More information about the Pd-list mailing list