[PD] CONVENTION /// was Re: some images...

Mathieu Bouchard matju at artengine.ca
Mon Sep 10 01:54:42 CEST 2007


On Sun, 9 Sep 2007, marius schebella wrote:

> I think that is true not only for code, but also for patches.

I don't make a distinction between patches and "real code".

> atm automatic testing is still very complicated to do (at least I would not 
> know how to write it). but testing could also be "manual".

No, it should be pretty clear that it can't be manual. At least it should 
be semi-automatic: the patch guides the person and shows results that are 
easy to verify for the person but hard to do for the computer.

> I really like the idea to start patching with a help patch where the 
> object inlets and outlets and functions/features are defined before 
> starting with the external itself. maybe that also would make patches 
> more shareable... marius.

This works if you have something specific in mind. If you are making 
exploratory programming, this can't work. However, in the process of 
making exploratory programming you may encounter a pattern that you want 
to turn into an abstraction, just like when doing any programming. At this 
point it becomes less exploratory and more defined... well, maybe you are 
not sure about how the abstraction would be used yet, but that's normal; 
at least you know where you're heading. What I mean by exploratory 
programming, is to noodle around with your program until you find 
something you want.

One annoying thing with Pd, is that before you make the help patch, you 
have to make at least a skeleton of the class you want to make, so that 
you have inlets and outlets to connect in your help-patch or test-patch. 
It goes a bit against the spirit of "test-first", but it's not a big loss.

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| Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801, Montréal QC Canada


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