[PD] [psql] object hand-holding

[IOhannes m zmoelnig]

Thomas Grill wrote:
> There must be other externals using proxy inlets, probably zexy or other 
> iem-based stuff.

right: e.g. zexy's [mulitplex] (aka [mux]) uses proxy-inlets.

there are 2 reasons why it is not in the externals-howto:
#1 it would have complicated the howto needlessly
#2 when i wrote the howto, i had no idea about proxy inlets and/or how 
to use them.


having said that, i think it is usually a bad idea to all right-hand 
inlets accept arbitrary messages for _most_ objects (not for all).
a message with a (nonstandard) "selector" selects a method of the object 
to be called and makes this explicit. e.g. it tells the object to do 
something (and eventually provides auxiliary data, to complete this task).
if you are just passing around data to be collected by the object, there 
is already a certain type of message to do so: "list".
it is possible to create a right-hand "list" inlet using the methods 
described in the externals-howto (iirc :-))


while i basically agree with matju, that a consistent use of the 
data-flow paradigm should not be made the holy grail (if we don't want 
to end up fighting green knights), i do think that we should bear 
data-flow (as opposed to control-flow) in mind and design objects 
accordingly.


mfg.adsf
IOhannes