[PD] "Structured" dataflow?

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

This all makes me think that we should write a Pd book that covers  
things like good form.  Perhaps we could make it a decentralized  
collaborative effort with strange consensus decisionmaking to mirror  
the Pd community :D

.hc

On Jan 12, 2008, at 8:41 AM, Jamie Bullock wrote:

>
> On Fri, 2008-01-11 at 11:29 -0800, Dudley Brooks wrote:
>> Can anyone direct me to articles on constructing clear, modular,
>> non-spaghetti patches in pd or other visual dataflow languages?
>> Especially if the articles derive their recommendations from  
>> theoretical
>> analysis (as with the investigations that led to structured  
>> programming
>> in imperative languages), rather than just rules-of-thumb -- although
>> the latter are useful also.
>
> You might find this document interesting if not helpful:
>
> http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/13474
>
>> Or is some amount of spaghetti unavoidable in dataflow languages,
>> perhaps because it is inherent in the situation being modeled, rather
>> than being an artifact of the language?
>
> Personally, I find that there is an idiomatic way to use most  
> languages,
> which is congruous with the way the language is designed. Of course,
> people may want to deliberately subvert this relationship, but I guess
> that's different from using something in an unidiomatic way and not
> being aware of the fact.
>
> Although, I think Frank wrote these in a non-didactic spirit, I find
> Franks 'dogmas' very helpful for clear and idiomatic Pd patching:
>
> http://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/2007-04/049447.html
>
> I have also found Frank's 'footils' collection of abstractions to  
> be an
> excellent source of idioms and examples of how to make clear and
> coherent patches.
>
> I must stress that I'm not suggesting that this is the 'correct'  
> way to
> patch, I just personally find it to be clear, elegant and spaghetti
> avoiding!
>
> best,
>
> Jamie
>
> -- 
> www.postlude.co.uk
>
>
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