[PD] reconciliation of externals/ abstractions/libs

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

I agree with you, it is something that should be done.  This is the  
motivation behind my intent to add a deprecation mechanism.  Then we  
can minimize the pain as we sort thru all of the various objects. But  
it will require a lot of tedious work.  So the real key to getting this  
done is contributing to the effort with more than just ideas.

Also, if you want a pared down Pd, you can use Miller's version.  He  
has quite strict requirements for what gets admitted, while the  
CVS-based distros are more like testbeds.

.hc

On Feb 4, 2005, at 10:38 PM, etienne deleflie wrote:

> All,
>
> Some years ago I developped a plugin framework for the software  
> company I still work for. The plugin framework was a hit because  
> anyone who wanted to add functionality could easily do so, without  
> touching the existing code base.
>
> Now, 3 years down the track, it has become problematic..... it is a  
> maintenance nightmare, and very confusing for users.
>
> Rather than check if someone had already developed a plugin that  
> practically fulfilled their requirements (and extending it),  
> developers would just write a new one from scratch.... and add it to  
> the pool.
>
> Clients became confused and irritated at constantly having to sift  
> through dozens of lists of plugins, many of which did the same thing  
> in slightly different ways. Often, a client would find 5 or 6 plugins  
> that each did 95% of what they wanted, but never one that did it all.
>
> So we started to reconcile the plugins ..... and found that we could  
> easily break down 120 plugins down to a list of less than 30 .... much  
> less confusion and each plugin was actually much more powerful  
> (because it satisfied a broader range of needs).
>
> ... constantly searching through lists of externals/abstractions/libs  
> for the thing that does just what I want, I cant help but think that  
> PD could benefit from such an effort. It is a difficult effort because  
> there has to be some kind of committe which officially accepts an  
> external/abstraction/lib into an official list... and then anytime  
> someone develops a similar object that adds slightly to the existing  
> functionality then someone else would have to roll those  
> changes/extensions in. .... but it would make PD much more powerful  
> and easy to use.
>
> Etienne
>
>
>
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