[PD] segmented patchcords (was Re: PD & MAX)

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Wed, 5 Dec 2007, chris clepper wrote:

> Segmenting, coloring, and/or hiding the patch cords aren't going to
> magically make every patch clear and easy to follow.

I'm not expecting magic. I've never expected magic. I don't see what's the 
relationship between segmenting/coloring and magic. I don't know why you 
mention magic.

Any feature that is good enough is going to be abused (but it doesn't mean 
that anything abusable is good enough). Programming languages are full of 
very powerful features that you can't fool-proof.

Other features aren't any more magical than segmenting, and yet they are 
there. So what is your argument trying to say?

> Abstractions and subpatches help quite a bit, but at a certain point 
> going 11 windows deep to find or fix something

I envision that there will be a day not too far away from now where I'll 
get that deep. What it will require is something better than just opening 
a window per patch and let it all up to the window manager which is 
usually doesn't have any better policy than letting it all up to the user, 
which is left with a stack of 11 windows that restacks itself every time 
you touch it.

> is nearly as ridiculous as cramming everything into a single spider 
> webbed window.

There are some excesses in software design sometimes, but for when it's 
not avoidable, there ought to be a solution for managing it. It's like, 
the spiderweb kind of window is another excess, and segmented cords can't 
quite fix it, but there are patchings that are as neat as they can be and 
yet can't look neat as it is, without involving a detour... there ought to 
be a solution for managing them.

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