[PD] Latest Pd-extended experiences (zexy)

[David Powers]

Hi,

So I finally downloaded and installed the latest Pd extended. First
impressions are good - looks MUCH better on windows than the previous
version. I can actually show this to people, and perhaps have them
believe it is professional software now.

Gem is also recent, which was an issue for me with past releases.

So, my first test is loading up my monster VJ patch. Here, I see there
are some problems. First, I thought that zexy wasn't loading right,
but finally I realized that what happened is the [demux] shortcut is
gone, and I had to type out demultiplex instead. A little
inconvenient, since there are 25 abstractions at least besides the
master patch, but not impossible to fix.

Second issue, which to me is perhaps a bigger problem: the utility
externals seem to have disappeared from Gem with no warning. I use
randomF a lot, and it's just gone! This forces a rather tedious
process of searching for instances in my patch, and replacing with
some abstraction that takes an integer and divides it to get a random
float.

For that matter, wouldn't it be reasonable to have a built in ability
to get random floats? In most any programming language I have ever
seen, random numbers are normally integers that get converted to
floats, and I find it odd that PD has built in random integers only...

So, bottom line: for now my VJ patch is broken, but I believe it
requires only minor fixes. I will report back on whether I am able to
get it up and running, and how much time it takes to do so.

~David