[PD] "object" or "class" in pdpedia

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Sep 13, 2007, at 9:32 AM, Frank Barknecht wrote:

> Hallo,
> Frank Barknecht hat gesagt: // Frank Barknecht wrote:
>
>> This is a "me too"-message from me: For the same reasons as Thomas  
>> I'd
>> prefer to stick with "object". While "class" is more correct, I think
>> the difference is something only computer scientists are interested
>> in and Pd has a tradition of not always following the path of
>> mainstream computer science anyway, because it's not a tool mainly
>> targetting computer scientists but one targetting artists. I'd say,,
>> reserve the term class for pd-dev.
>
> It occured to me that it may sound like I'd try to "dumb down" Pd for
> artists, which is not my intention, so I'd like to clarify a bit:
>
> We're talking about what term to use in pdpedia for the descriptions
> of the available building blocks for patches, mainly externals and
> abstractions. When building patches, what users (scientists and
> artists) deal with, are objects. The only thing you can do with a
> class when building a patch is to make an instance of it: an object of
> the class.
>
> So in the pdpedia context using the term "object" for the list of
> building blocks in my view wouldn't be wrong at all. As "object" also
> is the term that is generally used when talking about Pd patches
> here--as in: "Just put an [osc~] object into your patch to make a sine
> wave." Nobody says: "Instantiate the [osc~] class to make a sine
> wave."--it is perfectly valid to use "object/symbol" on pdpedia. IMO
> at least.

I am still up in the air about this.  While many Pd programmers  
rarely write their own object classes (abstractions, externals...), I  
think this is not something that should be encouraged.  I think we  
should be encouraging people to learn about writing their own object  
classes, by writing better docs, and improving Pd, and spreading the  
knowledge.

Part of writing better docs is coming up with clear and concise  
terminology.  There is an important distinction that should be made  
much clearer than it currently is.  "class" is a term that is rarely  
used in Pd land, we don't have to use that term.  But I think that we  
should make a point to make the issues clear, rather than just saying  
"most people will probably never use that idea anyway, and few people  
ever talk about it in detail, and everyone just says it like this now  
anyhow."

On that note, I have yet to hear a term that I think really is the  
right one.  But I do think that "objectclass" is a workable  
compromise for Pdpedia.  And if no one ever uses the word  
"objectclass" outside of Pdpedia, I think that is also fine.  How  
often do you use the word "disambiguation" or "selector"?

.hc


>
> Ciao
> -- 
>  Frank Barknecht                 _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__
>
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