[PD] Pd Manual
Hans-Christoph Steiner
hans at at.or.at
Tue Aug 11 18:59:00 CEST 2009
Yeah, good point. The "connection order" statement should really be a
footnote. [trigger] should really be introduced before talking about
the connection order.
.hc
On Aug 10, 2009, at 4:44 PM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
>
> I think there is a problem in section 2.3.2 of the Pd Manual:
>
> "It is indeterminate which of "B" or "C" is done first; this depends
> on
> what order you made the connections in (in Max, it's automatically
> sorted
> right to left)."
>
> First of all, the part before the semicolon contradicts the part that
> follows the semicolon.
> Second of all, the next paragraph talks about infinite loops;
> [trigger]
> isn't addressed until the following section, momentarily making it
> seem
> as if "the order you made the connections in" is an feature of the
> language that is somehow analogous to Max's right-to-left sorting.
>
> This may seem nitpicky, but I think the analogous Pd feature
> in this case is Pd's reliance on [trigger] as the main
> way to specify execution order. I think [trigger] should be mentioned
> before the the quoted material above (or at least immediately
> following)
> so that the comparison to Max is as follows:
>
> Max: When multiple connections are made from an object, they are
> executed
> in right-to-left order. This makes it easy to know the execution
> order
> simply by looking at a patch, but can make it tricky to reorganize the
> patch (unless [trigger] is used explicitly).
>
> Pd: When the execution order needs to be specified, the user
> explicitly
> uses a [trigger] object. This means you can look at a patch and tell
> the execution order, _and_ (aside from [inlet] and [outlet]) objects
> can be reorganized without the risk of changing the execution order.
> Finally, if there are multiple connections from an object and
> [trigger]
> is not used, it can be assumed that either execution order shouldn't
> matter in that instance, or that the person making the patch has
> forgotten
> to specify it (in which case it is an error and [trigger] should be
> utilized).
>
> The fact that Pd executes in the order the connections were made only
> makes sense in light of the explicit use of [trigger]. Even if Pd
> rolled
> some virtual dice to determine execution order when multiple
> connections are coming from a single object, most of our patches would
> work the same because we all use [trigger] explicitly in Pd, right?
>
> I know the Pd manual doesn't make assumption about how someone
> _should_
> use Pd, but I think this is an exception, because anyone who is
> relying
> on the order they make connections is going to have a hard time
> getting
> anywhere. Plus, it seems like an unusual number of people have said
> (or written) that Pd "relies" on the order in which you make
> connections
> for the execution order, which isn't true.
>
> Does this make sense?
>
> -Jonathan
>
>
>
>
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