[PD] style guide idea: [send foo] versus [; foo(

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Mar 20, 2009, at 1:34 PM, Matt Barber wrote:

>> hmm.. generally this could be a good idea, but message sending is  
>> most useful
>> when initialising a number of receives ie:
>>
>> [loadbang]
>>  |
>> |; init-1 6          /
>> |; init-2 symbol foo |
>> |; init-3 -2         \
>>
>> which is far more elegant than the the trigger/send replacement,  
>> especially
>> with more fields..
>>
>> i think its important for students to recognise that this feature  
>> of messaging
>> has a role to play, rather than trying to veil its use. in my  
>> experience
>> people will tend to use [send foo] more often when they start pd,  
>> then begin
>> abbreviating to [s foo] before they appreciate the msg shorthand [;  
>> foo[. but
>> you are right it is a little confusing for new users..
>>
>
> Also note that some objects, e.g. [qlist], positively depend on the
> message sending style.  My students who wanted to use them have often
> wondered why we hadn't covered the two ways of sending more in depth.

Can you explain with an example?  I don't understand why you must use  
message boxes semi-colons for [qlist].  The [qlist] help patch  
doesn't  have any message boxes with semi-colons, for example.

.hc


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