[PD] PD OOP?

[Chris McCormick]

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 09:57:08PM -0800, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
> --- On Thu, 12/16/10, Chris McCormick <chris at mccormick.cx> wrote:
> 
> > From: Chris McCormick <chris at mccormick.cx>
> > Subject: Re: [PD] PD OOP?
> > To: "Mathieu Bouchard" <matju at artengine.ca>
> > Cc: "PD List" <pd-list at iem.at>
> > Date: Thursday, December 16, 2010, 5:40 AM
> > On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 10:23:24AM
> > -0500, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
> > > IMHO, directing your criticism at pd-vanilla alone is
> > extremely  
> > > unproductive. You have to accept the fact that doing
> > real work in Pd may  
> > > require a lot of externals. It's sad, but it's like
> > that. I wouldn't use  
> > > Pd if it didn't have externals.
> > 
> > Some platforms that Pd patches run on support very few
> > externals. If you want
> > to run your patches on a wide variety of platforms it is
> > rational to avoid
> > externals in order to avoid expending a great deal of extra
> > effort.
> 
> In many cases it is replaced by the effort required to make 
> a hack to replace the functionality of the missing external.

Yep. In my experience, the cost-benefit balance usually falls on the side of
restricting myself to not using many externals, or hacking functionality back
into abstractions, rather than trying to port externals to multiple platforms.
You are welcome to spend your own time however you like.

> In the cases where a Vanilla hack is not possible, you are either forced to
> use an external, or you arbitrarily restrict yourself and shrug off the fact
> that there is no rational way to get features into Vanilla even if (everyone
> - 1) finds them useful/necessary.

I guess I view it in a different way. Pd-msp is a constrained software
environment. I choose to match my patching style to those constraints so that I
don't have to do more annoying and time-consuming work. It's like writing a
haiku. If you can't change the world, change yourself. Ommm.

I am not sure that "(everyone - 1)" is fair. It is certainly not accurate. Of
course you are quite welcome to do whatever you like and patch however you
like, and even pretend that there are no good reasons for others to avoid
externals.

I will continue to optimise for my own laziness. :)

Cheers,

Chris.

-------------------
http://mccormick.cx