[PD] difference send and using msg with ";"

[Patrice Colet]

  Hello,
indeed, in message boxes, if the variable after the dollar sign doesn't 
match a number corresponding to the number of arguments given at it's 
input, it outputs directly the variable, if the variable is a number, it 
ignores the dollarsign, if the number is greater than the number of 
variables only, it outputs an error message.

  It just doesn't make easy to find errors.

  In object boxes such attempts would result into different error 
messages like "$2: argument number out of range", or "$-1: bad type", 
that might help for debugging a patch.

  For me, dollar sign has exactly the same behavior in objects and 
messages, it's just objects and messages that don't do the same things, 
and I would think that $0 would decrease performances reached by message 
boxes if it would have to give the patch ID instead of ignoring dollar 
sign like it actually does.


marius schebella a écrit :
> Hi,
> the problem is, that $1 (and $<) has a different behaviour in objects 
> and in messages.
> I think that was taken as reason, not to make $0 having the same 
> behaviour in messages, but giving it no behaviour at all and also no 
> alternative solution.
> but maybe there is another motivation I have not taken into 
> consideration. and I am also not able to implement any of the discussed 
> possibilities. I am just trying to find a lobby for either solution.
> 
> marius
> 
> Patrice Colet wrote:
>>  You know what, all along the hundreds of lines I've been reading in 
>> the list about $0, I don't get a single consistent reason why it 
>> hasn't the same behavior in object and message boxes.
>>
>> Matteo Sisti Sette a écrit :
>>> Mathieu Bouchard wrote
>>> (and a few other people wrote something similar):
>>>
>>>> $0 in objectboxes is already inconsistent with $1,$2,$3,... in
>>>> objectboxes, so, it's not clear that $0 in messagebox has to be 
>>>> consistent
>>>> with anything at all.
>>>
>>>
>>> $0 is inconsistent with $1, $2 etc strictly speaking, but you may 
>>> think of $0 as of an "implicit creation argument". The name $0 has 
>>> the same scope of the names $1,$2, in the sense that: in any two 
>>> places where two $0's would have the same value, two $1's would have 
>>> the same value. Both are values that are generated at the time of 
>>> creating the object (semantically I mean, I don't know if it is so in 
>>> implementation and it is irrelevant) and don't change later.
>>> So it is not *so* inconsistent.
>>>
>>> Making $0 mean in a message the same it means in an object box, would 
>>> make it *a lot* more inconsistent with $1,$2 in messages than $0 is 
>>> with $1,$2 in object boxes.
>>> $1,$2... in messages are evaluated at the time the message box 
>>> receives its input and generates its output; they are arguments of 
>>> the message it receives. The "natural" object-counterpart of $0 would 
>>> be a number that is unique to that particular message event (not 
>>> message box) or message tree, though that would be of little or no 
>>> use..... or wouldn't it?
>>>
>>> Also, consider the following goal:
>>> (*) give direct access to (implicit and explicit) creation arguments 
>>> ($n) of the patch within a message
>>>
>>> Making $0 mean the same in a message box than outside it would 
>>> address goal (*) only for the particular case of $0 and not for n>0, 
>>> and I personally think this isn't an elegant approach.
>>> Also, any future attempt to address (*) for n>0, would probably 
>>> result more difficult or have to be more inconsistend if the $0 case 
>>> has been treated this way.
>>>
>>>
>>> I am personally strongly against implementing $0 in messages meaning 
>>> the same as $0 outside them. It would introduce further 
>>> inconsistence. If there actually is some inconsistence now, it is not 
>>> a good reason imho to deliberately introduce more inconsistence.
>>>  
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