[PD] dealing with arguments and inlets

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Sat, 4 Feb 2006, IOhannes m zmoelnig wrote:

> arguments to an object are always data for this object (even though they might
> influence the way the object handles other data), therefore they cannot be non
> list-lists.

Yes. If a list has to be broken down into single elements, it should be as 
"atom messages", that is, in a form castable to 1-element list-lists.

> i think most bad things with nonlistlike messages arise from the use of
> the selector as _data_. (and sometimes messages become nonlistlike
> messages (by the use of say [route]) just to simple)

In other words, [route] is consistent with messageboxes' list shortcut (of 
not having to write "list" if the message starts with a float) and it is 
so by not being consistent with Pd's internals. That something as basic as 
[route] behaves in such a way is misleading about Pd's messaging model and 
is source of confusion.

I suggest that a new [list route] object be created that would do like 
[route] except that it wouldn't accept nonlistlike messages and would 
always route according to $1 and not according to sometimes the $1 and 
sometimes the selector.

> the only reason to not use [list] is compatibility with older pd
> versions (but i also advise to use pd-0.39)

Yes. Backwards compatibility is nice, but it makes a lot more sense to pay 
attention to backwards compatibility when there is a solid base of 
features such that new features aren't so compelling that one wants to 
depend on them.

 _ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ...
| Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801 - http://artengine.ca/matju
| Freelance Digital Arts Engineer, Montréal QC Canada