[PD] Zen Garden re-implementing the wheel in C++?

Mathieu Bouchard matju at artengine.ca
Sat Apr 17 07:38:00 CEST 2010


On Fri, 16 Apr 2010, Spencer Russell wrote:

> I'm excited about the idea of a more object-oriented approach,

Pd's implementation was made with an object-oriented approach. You can't 
get much more object-oriented than that. If you mean that the 
object-oriented approach has been implemented using C++'s grammar instead 
of having to invent yet another object system in C, you are right, and 
that can be a relief. However, this does not guarantee anything at all on 
the outcome of the project.

Much of ZenGarden is designed by copy+paste, and that's something that it 
doesn't get any better than Pd.

Meanwhile, the author claims ZenGarden has « clean code », presumably to 
imply that Miller's isn't, but there's no explanation at all on what it 
means to be clean. I think cleanliness means no copy paste. I also think 
cleanliness doesn't mean using variable-names that look like 
this_is_the_array_that_contains_the_outlets_sorted_by_horizontal_position.

Then the externals API... I don't think that was compatible with anything. 
It's a lot easier to port your Pd externals to MAX than to ZenGarden.

> I haven't looked at the ZenGarden code at all yet though, so maybe
> they're doing a lot of borrowing where it makes sense?

maybe they're not doing any borrowing at all ?
Have a look.

> Maybe we can talk about this interesting development without a flame 
> war? Unlikely.

According to Einstein, temperature is in the eye of the beholder.

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


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