[PD] here I go again..dynamic abstractions

[Matt Barber]

> From: Frank Barknecht <fbar at footils.org>
>
> [1] Actually the $-variables 1,2,3,... in message boxes and those in
> object boxes aren't that different, because the contents of object
> boxes also are messages to Pd's objectmaker and they are used
> explicitely as messages when doing dynamic patching.
>


Yes, this is the case -- and probably one of the more elegant parts of
Pd -- but I still think this has less to do with Pd as an expressive
language and more to do with how it's implemented.

Even so, I think that a message box is not a message, any more than a
message to objectmaker is an object;  either way the $ values mean
something different in each context -- in the messages to objectmaker
they ultimately function more like environment variables or script
arguments, where in message boxes they're a little more like
substitution placeholders in something like a macro or a sed command.
I think the current $0 meaning is consistent with this interpretation.

I think my argument might be somewhat different if dynamic patching
were fully supported with an official API - a huge step would be the
ability to destroy individual objects with messages (can you?)...


Matt