[PD] FLOSS book Lists chapter

Jonathan Wilkes jancsika at yahoo.com
Fri Feb 18 22:57:32 CET 2011


--- On Fri, 2/18/11, Andy Farnell <padawan12 at obiwannabe.co.uk> wrote:

> From: Andy Farnell <padawan12 at obiwannabe.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [PD] FLOSS book Lists chapter
> To: "Jonathan Wilkes" <jancsika at yahoo.com>
> Cc: "Mathieu Bouchard" <matju at artengine.ca>, pd-list at iem.at
> Date: Friday, February 18, 2011, 7:46 PM
> 
> 
> 
> I noticed this too.
> 
> Miller is quite fond of using it in "Theory and
> Techniques".

1) http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/techniques/latest/book-html/node36.html
[phasor~] crossing the right inlet of [-~] is completely unecessary, 
solved merely by moving [-~], [*~], and [cos~] down by 10 px or so.


2) http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/techniques/latest/book-html/node53.html
looks better as attached with the two messages controling [line~] 
next to each other.

3) http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/techniques/latest/book-html/node119.html
Still unnecessary, but these benefit from signal connections being 
thicker so that there is a 1px corner where the wire meets the 
corresponding inlet (basically just a subtle, automatic segmented 
patch cord).

There are lots of others but I don't see how the modest aesthetic bonus 
of a completely straight line segment outweighs potential ambiguity 
created by them.

> 
> I do from time to time, but only if the connection
> is a leftmost or rightmost control/message connection.
> 
> For certain kinds of patch, where you mostly have
> audio DSP runnimg down the page, and occasional 
> parameterisation by number or recieve boxes to the
> sides, having them hoizontal makes for a kind of
> nice clarity, audio vertical, messages horizontal.

It might look nice but if the object being connected to 
has more than one inlet there is an ambiguity in the 
patch.  This may be fine for a picture of a patch where 
the correct connection is obvious, but for an actual 
patching habit it's terrible because a subtle, persistent 
bug can easily cause you to start searching through your 
patch for all such horizontal cord ambiguities and moving 
around the relevant objects.

It's exactly the same problem as seeing closely spaced 
objects:

[1(
[slay-fire-breathing-dragon]

Why risk it?

The only rational I can think of is: "looks clean".  Which, for a piece 
of software that relies on black mono-spaced text with black 
lines running over it, strikes [through] me as odd*.

-Jonathan

> 
> But break the rule rather than do anything ambiguous.

My rule avoids all the ambiguity addressed above (well, except for 
black lines running through black text).

-Jonathan

> 
> 
> On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 15:13:05 -0800 (PST)
> Jonathan Wilkes <jancsika at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > --- On Thu, 2/17/11, Mathieu Bouchard <matju at artengine.ca>
> wrote:
> > 
> > > From: Mathieu Bouchard <matju at artengine.ca>
> > > Subject: Re: [PD] FLOSS book Lists chapter
> > > To: "Jonathan Wilkes" <jancsika at yahoo.com>
> > > Cc: padawan12 at obiwannabe.co.uk,
> pd-list at iem.at
> > > Date: Thursday, February 17, 2011, 9:25 PM
> > > On Thu, 17 Feb 2011, Jonathan Wilkes
> > > wrote:
> > > 
> > > > if { $xlets_involved > 2 } {
> menu_doc_open
> > > attachment_dir horiz-connections.pd }
> > > 
> > > Error: Success
> > > 
> > > Now what's the problem with horizontal wires ?
> > > 
> > > I mean those that aren't overlapping any inlets
> or outlets,
> > > not the ones in your patch.
> > 
> > Here's a revised version where the wires aren't
> overlapping.
> > 
> > How do you know they aren't overlapping?
> > 1) Use pd-ext and notice the difference between the
> 1px gray box and the 
> > 1px black connections.
> > 2) Actually move the object to _reveal_ that the
> connection don't overlap.
> > 3) Always assume that the patch creator followed the
> rule of "don't 
> > overlap xlets".
> > 
> > 1 is implementation specific and ridiculously subtle
> for an 
> > environment where "the diagram is the code", 2 is
> wasting people's time 
> > by making them fuss around in the patch in order to be
> sure they 
> > understand what it does, and 3 is easy to screw up:
> > 
> >  __[inlet]_
> > [f]        [f]
> > 
> > (On a narrow object like [f] it's very easy to make a
> connection to the 
> > wrong inlet.  Well, not as easy on pd-l2ork...)
> > 
> > So I guess qualify it to "no horizontal connections
> unless there's only 1 
> > inlet and 1 outlet involved".
> > 
> > -Jonathan
> > 
> > 
> > > (We already agreed against
> > > overlapping wires)
> > > 
> > > 
> > >
> _______________________________________________________________________
> > > | Mathieu Bouchard ---- tél: +1.514.383.3801
> ----
> > > Villeray, Montréal, QC
> > 
> > 
> >       
> 
> 
> -- 
> Andy Farnell <padawan12 at obiwannabe.co.uk>
>


      
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