[PD] Re: Buffer Type Question

[IOhannes m zmoelnig]

chris tyrrell wrote:

> would have been useful to ask why certain externals
> take certain messages,
actually this is very complicated to answer.
when i write externals i have 2 choices for messages to externals:
1) something very simple; e.g: a "float" message to a [f] does really 
what i would expect it to do
2) convention:
2a) e.g: gem-objects respond to a "gem_state" message; this has been 
true for years and i don't see a reason to change this - so every new 
gem-object will respond to a "gem_state" message too
2b) when extending the functionality of an object, sometimes you come to 
the point when you say "oh, why haven't i thought before! \"set\" would 
be an ideal message for this functionality but unfortunately it is 
already used"

ad 1) there are two things one could do about it: learn the pd-language 
and read the help-patches
ad 2) convention is the daemon that is lurking everywhere in pd. by 
convention signal-objects end with a "~", by convention 
max-compatibility is not broken willingly,...
ad 2a) who is to blame ?
ad 2b) and who is to blame here ? it would be simple to change the 
messages an object responds to (from a programmer's side of view), but i 
try to avoid to do so because it would break each and every patch that 
relies on an older version of the external.


> would it for example be really
> bad to change the buffersize constantly during
> operation?

basically pd's dsp-engine is not designed for this.
this makes it quite unusable to work with compressed-data with non-fixed 
blocksizes;
furthermore it only allows blocksizes which are 2^n.

indeed it would be a great feature to make the blocksize change 
deliberately, but i do think that it will be a lot of work (and 
performance is likely to decrease drastically)


> oh yeah and finally mr. smoelning this is the second
feel free to call me by my forename like everybody else.

> time you have been mean to me, dont you love me? why
it is my evil twin that is sitting before my computers, trying to answer 
questions on the pd-list.

> cant we all get along? has anyone done a patch
> implementing an internation group hug?
i have heard about a love-patch that guarantees four inches.


mfg.a.sdr
IOhannes