[PD] Should message objects be able to pre-parse $0 into valid dollarzero?

[Jonathan Wilkes]

Yes I agree the two ideas may coexist.  But I also think that if the two were to coexist, $0 in message boxes would pale in comparison in terms of usability.

Hub/node: make a hub on a canvas.  Now every node you create on that canvas or subcanvas belongs to that hub.  If you need more than one, give them names.


$0: prepend a string with this to make a special name that is unique to a canvas and its subpatches (but not abstractions created in either).  The dollarsign variable will be filled in at the time the patch is created, and given a unique value in the running Pd instance.  If you want a name inside an abstraction to share the $0 with its parent, just send $0 as an abstraction argument, then use the corresponding argument number inside the abstraction to retrieve the value of the parent $0.

I mean, if you can solve $0 in message boxes in a few hours or so then go ahead and do it.  But if it brings up any issues that require workarounds I think the time would be better spent on building out more hub/node infrastructure.  (And they don't necessarily need to have that name, I'm just using it as a placeholder.)

Btw-- I just heard yesterday from someone using Max/MSP about something like using a "#0-" prefixes to hack local scope for receive symbols.  Is this still the case there, too?

-Jonathan



On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 1:08 PM, Ivica Bukvic <ico at vt.edu> wrote:
 


What about for instance arrays that should maintain scope inside a specific abstraction so that you can have multiple independent abstractions? $0 is very useful IMHO and is also necessary to stay due to backwards compatibility concerns. Therefore, I think the discussion should be limited to a simple yes or no for $0 substitution inside a message as it does not introduce a myriad of other questions.
Having message recognize it as such (the code already seeks to resolve dollarzero but fails because the canvas was not set as current which should be a simple addition of a couple of lines of code) makes sense even if the only benefit is not having to do [$0] or what you are suggesting, namely [zerofy-me]. It is also worth noting that there is no reason why the two could not coexist.
Yet, as it stands right now, $0, contrary to what has been already said in both threads on this topic, is an anomaly inside a message box and behaves like nothing else anywhere else in the code and as such this should be a no-brainer fix, just like having a trigger with static values, like [t 0 f 1] for opening a gate, passing a value, and then immediately closing it. This is what pd-l2ork does (and so does Max). So, rather than putting redundant messages with static values below the [t b] outlet, one object solves it all. To me this is the same situation where message can do it all, and if that makes my patching quicker, I am all for it.
On Sep 10, 2014 12:48 PM, "Jonathan Wilkes" <jancsika at yahoo.com> wrote:

Two things:
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>1) the lack of "$0" in messages is only a symptom of a bigger problem with scope of binding symbols in Pd.  I'd rather see new objects (or wrapper objects) that handle scope in a sensible manner which doesn't require typing "$0-" at all.  There's already no need for $0 in your preset_hub/node design.  Why not extend the hub/node idea and get rid of the need for $0 completely?
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>[hub]/[node] = [send]/[receive]
>[hub~]/[node~] = [throw~]/[catch~]
>etc.
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>2) On a more superficial note, isn't the problem that Pd doesn't store stray "\n" characters in message boxes?  The only time I can think of when one would have a real desire for $0 in a message box is when initializing a bunch of receivers:
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>[; $0-foo 1;
>$0-bar 2;
>$0-flub 3;(
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>But if the box stored "\n" you could get the same clean format with commas:
>[foo 1,
>bar 2,
>flub 3(
>|
>[zerofy-me] <- add a "$0-" to the selector
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>|        |
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>[send]
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>No ugly zeros, no leading semi-colon, everybody wins!
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>-Jonathan
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>On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 2:27 AM, Ivica Bukvic <ico at vt.edu> wrote:
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>On Sep 10, 2014 1:17 AM, "Chris McCormick" <chris at mccormick.cx> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Ivica,
>>
>> On 10/09/14 04:19, Ivica Ico Bukvic wrote:
>> > Yet, I wonder why message shouldn't be able to pre-parse $0 into a valid
>> > dollarzero (canvas instance), when there will never be a message one
>> >
>> > Thoughts?
>>
>> There has been a lot of discussion regarding this over the years which
>> might be good to read to get an idea on the different
>> philosophical/language design issues:
>>
>> <http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.multimedia.puredata.general/56365>
>Thanks, Chris, for bringing this to my attention. Since one of Miller's core ideas behind pd is absolute backwards compatibility, most of alternatives suggested in that thread would cause unacceptable breakage with backwards compatibility or a really kludge workaround for the support of legacy patches. It seems to me Phil really has a point I completely agree with. FWIW, I am looking to implement this in pd-l2ork and as soon as I get a better idea about the recursion Miller mentioned and how to circumvent it, it should find its way into pd-l2ork's source.
>Best,
>Ico
>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Chris.
>>
>> --
>> http://mccormick.cx/
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