[PD] Pd FLOSS Manual Update pt 1

[João Pais]

or you can also make the changes you see fit directly (for now I am too  
busy even to finish the math chapter)

> Hallo,
> Derek Holzer hat gesagt: // Derek Holzer wrote:
>
>> as I've mentioned before, this obscure and arcane business of many types
>> of messages is probably the most incomprehensible bit for new users
>> coming to Pd. What I'd like to see in this chapter is not just another
>> taxonomy of the different kind of messages Pd has. Rather, I'd like to
>> see clear tutorials with real world examples of why you would use
>> different messages for different purposes instead of presenting a bunch
>> of abstract information right away.
>>
>> I think the priority for the FLOSS Manual should be to show *why* things
>> are used, rather than to be exhaustive about all the different things
>> that *could* be used.
>
> Meta-messages (I'll use this term now) have a very important "why": In  
> Pd they
> are generally used to set the status of objects or make them do specific
> actions. Sending a "stop"-meta-message to [poly] will make it stop  
> playing,
> sending a "set"-meta-message to a [makefilename] will change the format  
> string,
> a "set" to a tabread sets the table to read from and so on.
>
> The other messages - float, symbol or list - generally are data carrying
> messages. Floats to tabread will give the value of that index in the  
> table,
> symbol to makefilename will apply the format string, lists to [poly]  
> will be
> tagged with a number and output it. All of these change data and pass it  
> along.
>
> There's lots of potential for explaining the difference with examples  
> taken
> from daily use.
>
> The distinction between meta-messages and data messages becomes very
> important in message boxes, which are only doing the expected dollar  
> expansion
> properly when the incoming message is a data message, and they react to  
> meta
> messages like "set" in completely different ways.
>
>   "Messages in Pd are simewhat artificially divided into two
>   classes. First are data-holding messages (bang, float,
>   symbol, list) which are the primary way of communicating
>   between objects. Second is "everything else" (you could
>   call them out-of-band messages or metamessages) that
>   describe changes in configuration, read and write files,
>   quit Pd, etc. These are provided so that complex objects
>   don't need to have 100 separate inlets for every possible
>   functionality. It's not clear whether this was a good
>   design choice, but it's entrenched."
> That's a quote from list-help.pd
>
>> So if obscure details are skipped in the beginning
>> in favor of clarity, I would prefer that. Other, later examples can show
>> the more exotic types and uses of "meta messages" "custom messages" etc,
>> or the distinctions between them when it becomes important.
>
> The distincion is important all the time. Even if it's explained in  
> detail
> later, the terminology should not be different. That's why I recommended  
> to not
> use "undefined strings" which is not a common term for the messages it  
> refers
> to, especially as most of  
> http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/view/PureData/Messages
> deals with meta-messages and [route]. [route] almost always is used with  
> either
> number lists or meta-messages, and only very rarely with data messages  
> not
> starting with a float. (That's why my [route]s often come in tandem with  
> [list
> trim].)
>
> Ciao



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