[PD] Re: pure == slow, impure == fast ? was purepd

[Frank Barknecht]

Hallo,
Tim Blechmann hat gesagt: // Tim Blechmann wrote:

> > Of course we all know, that patched stuff id Pd is slower than coding
> > stuff in C. Still we patch in Pd, why do we do it? Because performance
> > is not all that matters, ease of programming, the ability to change an
> > implementation on the fly etc. - all that is important as well and it
> > is the major reason, scripting languages are taking over large parts
> > of software development: The performance of the programmer is becoming
> > the much more important bottleneck than the performance of the CPU. 
> 
> right ... but that's why i think, reimplementing an external in pd is a
> waste of time. if there _is_ working c code, that's fine to use and,
> why shouldn't one just use it...

I don't want to forbid using externals at all, using - and writing -
externals is as much part of Pd as patching is. However an external is
a black box. Unless you know C, you cannot change its behaviour, even
if you only want to add a little feature. Also seeing the algorithm at
work in a graphical format can help with understanding it. You don't
even need a help patch to see, how many abstractions work. 

Then we have the problem with name clashes, which funnily occur
mostly in trivial cases like the [counter]. Why write different
versions of [counter]? Why write a simple [counter] external at all,
when it's easier to do using [f] and [+]?

Most importantly though: Not everyone has every external installed.
This is a real problem which I learned the hard way with RRADical,
where in the beginning I said to myself: Go crazy and use every
external there is to do the work. This was a bad mistake, because now
all the time people come asking (me) how to compile the needed
externals on Windows and I cannot help them. That's why I'm working on
replacing most of the stuff used in RRADical with builtin objects.
Unfortunatly there is nothing that can replace [pool] and [OSC] in Pd
yet, and I don't want to ditch OSC support in RRADical and I cannot
ditch [pool], which is a constant pool of trouble for non-technically
inclined users. :(

Ciao
-- 
 Frank Barknecht                 _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__