[PD] Getting the best out of the rewrite (was: Re: pow~, etc. in Pd-extended 0.42.5)

[Ivica Ico Bukvic]

FWIW, I recently listened to a really entertaining presentation of a
computer systems security expert and one thing he pointed out that IMHO is
currently really bogging Pd development is legacy support.

If PD is currently undergoing a complete rewrite of the GUI this may be a
good opportunity to also revisit external naming scheme. I understand that
there has been a lot of work done by Hans and others to make pd-extended
easier to use, yet many problems remain. What if we simply all agree to do
fundamental changes to how externals work with the understanding that we are
effectively breaking backwards compatibility (which is not that big of a
deal, simply use your favorite editor and search/replace offending objects
and you are done) and make the whole thing a lot simpler?

For instance, each external object could be simply retitled to cyclone_pow~
or iemlib_pow~ or whatever. We've been effectively doing this with DISIS
objects and have had no problems whatsoever with trivial issues such as what
folder they need to go into and where is their help file supposed to go
(e.g. pd-extended still fails to load proper help files and has a myriad of
other problems).

Of course, this is not as easy as it sounds:

What objects are considered a part of the vanilla pd-extended? I would
simply say iem, gem, and pd are vanilla are it and everything else is
renamed.

What about the trouble of remembering what object does what? Well, if 0.43
will have a nice right-click menu with all objects listed in there and if we
do good cross-referencing documentation, this should not be as difficult
and/or confusing (certainly no more than typing cyclone/pow~ or whatever).

etc. Basically, I think this would in the long run be a lot easier as we
would simply end-up having only one folder for all help files and only one
folder for all externals. No sub-folders, no complex paths, lost/mixed-up
help files, no unusual workarounds within Pd.

Just my 1-cents worth...

Ico