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

[Martin Peach]

Frank Barknecht wrote:
> Hallo,
> Mathieu Bouchard hat gesagt: // Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, 20 Mar 2009, Frank Barknecht wrote:
>>
>>> For example I'd rather start with making people properly left-align  
>>> their patches and avoid crossing patch cords
>> well, I do my best to reduce the number of crossings, but if I have to  
>> avoid crossings completely, I'll just avoid Pd...
>>
>> Pd doesn't make it easy to avoid crossings.
>>
>> Not all crossings are even bad. Crossings that are ambiguous-looking are  
>> very bad. Too many crossings in the same area is bad, except if the  
>> crossings are very regular-looking (a line crossing a bunch of parallel  
>> lines is more orderly than a line crossing a bunch of random-angled  
>> lines).
> 
> Yeah, lets not turn a style guide into a style law.
> 
> Sometimes crossings are not avoidable indeed. You also have to weight
> crossings against other layout questions, like preferring straight
> vertical lines and left-alignment. I think, when laying out my patches
> I seem to go like that: 
> 
> 1) avoid crossings
> 
> 2) if that doesn't work, then try to avoid patch cords crossing over
>    objects, i.e. prefer cords crossing other cords only
> 
> 3) if you really have to cross over objects, make the patch cords go
>    in straight vertical lines (straight vertical cords are the best cords
>    anyway)
> 
> 4) even then avoid crossing over object inlets or outlets, as it is
>    ambiguous which cords are connected.
> 

It's a fun exercise for some kinds of mind to make all the non-vertical 
lines either horizontal or 45 degrees, as in the attached screen grab.
It's a bit like the map-colouring-using-only-4-colours problem, proving 
if it's always possible to do this. The patches often end up using more 
surface area though. (It doesn't work so well if the lines are 
anti-aliased, as it's too hard to tell if they are really aligned modulo 
45 degrees)

Martin

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