[PD] Reference article for Pdpedia & Templates

Mathieu Bouchard matju at artengine.ca
Sun Nov 11 20:40:49 CET 2007


On Sat, 10 Nov 2007, IOhannes m zmoelnig wrote:

> however, in the case of [multiplex] "messages" are acutally treated as 
> "data", therefore the distinction blurs, but this is because 
> [multiplex], like [route], is more a "system"-object that is to be used 
> to _control_ the data-flow, rather than an ordinary object.

This is because it makes you think of control-flow statements in C, which 
are special, as you can't define any new (except some macro tricks), and 
functions cannot fulfill the same role.

Several languages allow you to define control-flow statements because they 
look like any other functions. there are anonymous sub-functions that act 
like the blocks of a control-flow statements. In some of those languages, 
all control-flow statements are functions.

In Pd, all control-flow statements are objects, and there is no need to 
draw a line between "system" and "non-system". There are more useful lines 
to draw, such as "behaves like [pack] followed by an object followed by 
[unpack]" or "behaves like [timer]", as a way to tell quickly what an 
object is supposed to be used like.

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


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