[PD] OT - C++ for reusable dsp lib - or better use C?

[Phil Stone]

On 2/26/12 10:29 AM, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
> Le 2012-02-25 à 14:29:00, Phil Stone a écrit :
>> IMO, Pd *approaches* this potential of live-coding, but isn't there 
>> yet. The edit/play dichotomy,
>
> The Edit/Play modes are there just to allow more different mouse 
> commands. It's not really a feature of the engine, it's just for 
> switching between two sets of mouse behaviours in the GUI, because 
> there are not enough buttons.

That's a good point, but the other problem I mentioned -- audio dropouts 
during editing, especially if the dsp graph needs recompiling -- is 
still a deal breaker for live *performance* coding (unless one embraces 
the glitches). Now, if by 'live', one just means highly interactive, 
I'll grant Pd that. That's more what I'm concerned with anyway -- a 
rapid connection between idea and execution, not necessarily doing 
programming in front of an audience.

>> I also like programming in "word" languages,
>
> For what I presume you call a non-word language, Pd has quite a large 
> vocabulary of words in it.

I'm pretty sure you, and most readers of this list, understand the 
distinction I am making between graphics-dominated and text-dominated 
programming environments. Perhaps the scare quotes should be a tip that 
I'm not speaking in exactitudes at that moment. :-)

Don't think that your points about the liveness of Pd are lost on me, 
though. I've been thinking about it a great deal since watching that 
video yesterday, and realized the very interactiveness the guy in the 
video was bragging about is something we take for granted. Number boxes 
change values instantly! Wow!

I was excited, however, by the capability of changing underlying code by 
manipulating the product. Pd even nudges into that territory with its 
bastard son dynamic patching, but it's not particularly intuitive.


Phil