[PD] Very large patches unstable?

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Wed, 2 Dec 2009, Matteo Sisti Sette wrote:

> are not implemented in the most optimized way, that is for example, 
> double linked lists are used where more efficient data structures could 
> be used.

In almost all of Pd, singly-linked lists are used. That's even more 
inefficient than doubly-linked lists.

> I simply guess that in some cases, an implementation that is O(n^2) is 
> chosen just because it is the easiest one, where a O(nlogn) is possible.

Quite often, it's even O(n) vs O(n^2).

> really safe to assume 'n' won't ever be big enough? Isn't it worth using 
> a more efficient data structure? Can I really assume that it would be 
> 'foolish' to have n>[some value here]? Or maybe not?"

I agree about this but it would be foolish to not think about how those 
modifications to the source code would get distributed. There's not much 
that I would bother to write for pd-vanilla, without à priori getting an 
explicit note from the man, certifying that the proposal won't sit for 
æternal rest in the holy sourceforget repository of forgotten diffs.

> Allowing to go beyound the limits means designing things in such a way 
> that they can be used in ways that the developer haven't thought about. 
> And wherever a physical, numerical, well-defined limit still exists, 
> which is unavoidable, it MUST be documented.

You can't learn that in a culture that encourages people to think of 
programming by imagining an infinite, strictly-monotonous sequence of 
ever-bigger computers, whereby if a given programme runs on any infinite 
subsequence of those computers, it's all fine. ;)

> Sometimes however the bugs are too difficult to isolate,

If you still have not tried Valgrind, now is the time. It does wonders.

> Perhaps I should sometimes share also the great joys and satisfactions 
> it gives me, and not only the frustrations which are a small percentage.

I'm guilty of that too.

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| Mathieu Bouchard, Montréal, Québec. téléphone: +1.514.383.3801