[PD] [PD-announce] more objects: passwd utils

Marc Lavallée marc at hacklava.net
Tue Jun 13 21:00:09 CEST 2006


Le 13 Juin 2006 10:42, Hans-Christoph Steiner a écrit :
> [shell] doesn't work on Windows and [py] has crashing issues and
> doesn't necessarily work easily on Windows.  

Well, Windows is not an operating system, it's a gigantic kludge to secure a 
monopolistic empire. PD works better on Gnu/Linux (and probably OSX), so 
the more you give to Windows users, the longer they will be stucked using 
it.

> Plus I've never used 
> python, and don't really want to learn any new languages right now (I
> know enough, its time to get some work done!).

That's also my point, except I would be reluctant to install more externals 
when I can already use scripting languages for basic things. We already 
have the required tools to get some work done. I read somewhere that 50% of 
a software is about its documentation; I would say that 50% of any computer 
related work is done when you know one good scripting language. Of course, 
you can also spend your energy coding externals (and help patches) to do 
the same.

> And since Pd is already written in C, it makes sense to write the
> primitives in C so there are less dependencies.  

That makes sense on small systems, like embeded devices with Linux.
On a normal computer it's much less of an issue.

> You are of course 
> free to use UNIX scripting commands, so I am guessing these objects
> are not for you.  But many Pd programmers don't know python or UNIX
> scripting, so why should Pd programmers have to learn another
> language in order to do basic things?  That's like telling python
> programmers they should just use the UNIX scripting or C.

PD is not a programming or scripting language, so these objects will not 
help people to learn about their computer and its common interface (Unix 
commands). Some PD users are willing to switch to Gnu/Linux for various 
reasons, and in order to succeed they need to learn about Unix. Instead of 
writing C externals, I would write scripting recipes, because they are 
usually much easier to understand than C for basic things, and have a 
better pedagogic value. But learning about C is good too...

Anyway, your externals should be successful; 
people are lazy (especially Windows users...) ;-)
--
Marc




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