[PD] datastruct newbie mistake

[Chris McCormick]

Hi Matju,

On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 04:58:06PM -0400, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Sep 2006, Chris McCormick wrote:
> >I recommend you learn the ins and outs of datastructures if you are
> >rewriting Pd;
> 
> Well, I'm sort of learning them now, though not at all the way most would 
> learn about them. By reading and rewriting the source I get to know a 
> bunch of functions with 11 or 14 or 19 arguments to them.

That's cool, but it's a little bit like learning to drive by reading a
book about the combustion engine.

> Part of the problem with that is that a rewrite of the IEMGUI classes 
> was one of the earliest things done in DesireData. I don't recall many 
> suggesting back then that IEMGUI could be rewritten in structs. If anyone 
> wants to attempt to do it, it would be cool.

I guess those work already, so what's the point in re-writing them? Which
might apply to your situation too; you started DesireData some time ago
so maybe lots of DD was implemented before datastructures became useful.

> >I can't imagine someone re-writing or forking a piece of software 
> >without understanding one of it's major features.
> 
> If it's so major a feature then how come more people aren't using it? I 
> believe that GEM is much more of a major feature of PureData.

In general I would say that it takes a little while before drastically
different new features start being used in software. I didn't use GEM
for a number of years after learning Pd, and that isn't even new, just
different. I would be interested to know where you get your data on the
number of people using datastructures.

Best,

Chris.

-------------------
chris at mccormick.cx
http://mccormick.cx