[PD] class_sethelpsymbol (was: [folder] external?)

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Jun 25, 2010, at 7:07 PM, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Jun 2010, Bryan Jurish wrote:
>
>> I clearly and distinctly recall that you (Hans) mentioned to me off- 
>> list in 2008 that use of class_sethelpsymbol() was deprecated for  
>> pd-extended ("it is best not to use class_sethelpsymbol() at  
>> all" [for pd-extended]) and recommended that I remove those calls  
>> from my code
>
> That's the usual mantra. Some kind of preaching without much  
> justification. Thou shalt not use class_sethelpsymbol, thou shalt  
> not use aliases, because it's ugly and wrong. it's wrong because  
> it's ugly, and it's ugly because it's wrong. It's wrong because if  
> you used class_sethelpsymbol, it would be ugly. (see also : begging  
> the question !). It sounds like a seminar about young sheep being  
> guided towards JAVA (Jesus Gosling was born in  
> com.sun.labs.Bethlehem at the beginning of our era...)
>
>> Indeed.  The same holds (these days) for 'moocow'.  I still feel that
>> this discussion is relevant, though.
>
> I don't think it's Hans' business to impose a helpfile style through  
> deprecation of class_sethelpsymbol. Library writers deserve more  
> freedom than that... EVEN if they decide to misuse it, then Hans  
> should not seek to ban sethelpsymbol for example, and instead should  
> go against the content or the filename, such anything that Degoyon  
> decides to be teaching us about giraffe(s).


How about you guys all speak for yourselves and let me speak for  
myself.  This time around, all I said is that there is the only time  
to use class_sethelpsymbol() is if the help patch is different than  
the classname of the object.  Its redudant in that case.

.hc


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