[PD] about [prepend] on osx

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Nov 26, 2005, at 2:59 PM, Krzysztof Czaja wrote:

> Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> ...
>> believe that abbreviations in code cause a lot more trouble than they  
>>  save.  Something along these lines:
>> "Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer  
>> what  to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings  
>> what we  want a computer to do."
>>                         -Donald Knuth
>
> which is why instructions for a computer should be kept short.
> In Knuth's WEB there is @d, not @define, @i, not @include, etc.
> Likewise, library prefix should not clutter the content.  Its
> main purpose is to instruct a computer where it is supposed to
> look for an object's definition.  For a reader of a patch
> "cyclone/" means no more than "nonstandard/".

Well, everyone makes mistakes, even Donald Knuth ;).  Basically all  
recently designed languages encourage long descriptive names with fewer  
symbols and more words (SmallTalk, ObjC, Java, Python, Ruby, etc.).  I  
would like Pd to be in this camp too.

>> I, for one, do not have an endless memory for abbreviations.  I think  
>> I  share that trait with the majority of population.  Consider  
>> yourselves  fortunate if you do have such a memory, but please humor  
>> the rest of  us.
>
> why the irony?  I proposed cc as an option, after all.  But ok,
> I can live without it, although it is only one little, simple to
> remember, hard-to-misspell abbreviation with a slight pun in it.

Actually, I wasn't being ironic at all, but totally literal.  Many  
coders do have an amazing ability to remember a seemingly limitless  
number of abbreviations.  From my experience, these coders tend to like  
C.  Many other people cannot remember very many details like all of the  
symbols, abbreviations, etc. in C.  When I discovered SmallTalk, it was  
an epiphany.  I could just read the code like sentences.  So I try to  
apply that style to all my coding.

I think that Pd also has this kind of potential.  Its almost physical  
nature makes it feel familiar to many people.  And if the namespace  
could be clean, simple, and easy to read, then it would be a much more  
accessible language.  Yes, it would take up more space, but I think it  
would also lead to less bugs.  And really, if you want very compact  
code, you can load the libs, and then you don't need any prefix, not  
even "cc".

.hc

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