[PD] pd <--> maxmsp compatibility

[volker böhm]

hallo frank,

On 01 Nov 2008, at 12:04, Frank Barknecht wrote:
> Hallo,
>
>> very often i find myself sitting infront of a pretty trivial patching
>> problem, but i just can't find the right objects names in pd.
>
> One major difference between Max and Pd is the number of available
> objects. Ignoring objects that aren't available in Pd at all (like the
> Jitter stuff) generally I'd say we have four kinds of differences:
>
> 1) some objects just have different names (osc~ vc. cycle~)
> 2) some serve the same purpose, but behave differently and
>    may have different names (spigot vs. gate)
> 3) some can be build from Pd's builtin objects (counter)
> 4) some objects are only available as externals (Cyclone is great)
>
> Items 1) and 2) just require users to learn a different vocabulary.
> There's no way around that, but it shouldn't be too hard. With Pd and
> Max this is a bit like learning different variants of natural
> languages e.g. the Austrian and the German German - "Sessel" vs.
> "Stuhl". ;)
>
> It would be cool to document these differences in a Wiki page or so.

yes, definitely.


> Which solution to choose from 3) and 4) depends on what kind of
> philosophy you are a fan of, or what kind of "patching school" you
> want to be a part of. Externals sometimes have to be used, but quite
> often you can also approach a task using just the builtin objects.
sure.

> This requires a slightly deeper knowledge of Pd, but in the long run
> will make your patches be more portable and easier to install. Of
> course for some purposes you have to use externals for various reasons
> like performance.


i'm still finding out about pd, but in max it's quite easy to include  
and use a set of externals - not much different than using abstractions.
a few years ago i was very much into "doing everything in max".
but when i started learning a little java and c, i noticed that a lot  
of things are way easier to code in an external.
actually i think we probably agree on this one.

>
> But objects like [uzi] or [counter] can be patched perfectly well
> using only what Pd vanilla offers -

yes, of course. [uzi] was just a simple example.
but i didn't know about [until] - so, thanks for your uzi abstraction.


best wishes,
volker.