[PD] PD OOP?

[Jonathan Wilkes]

--- 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: "Jonathan Wilkes" <jancsika at yahoo.com>
> Cc: "PD List" <pd-list at iem.at>
> Date: Thursday, December 16, 2010, 8:32 AM
> 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.

It is in the case of [initbang].  Everybody except Miller agrees that 
it would be a welcome addition to Vanilla.  At least everything 
I've read on this list has been positive about [initbang], and 
confirmed the need for it to solve at least one specific issue which 
is creating variable inlets in an abstraction (as well as having 
other benefits).  But it's not there, and it won't be there, so 
that's one issue that cannot be overcome by avoiding externals.  (Or 
rather, avoiding a Pd-extended internal.)

-Jonathan

> 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
>