[PD] suggestion: $0 in messages

Christof Ressi christof.ressi at gmx.at
Thu Apr 5 20:40:48 CEST 2018


I don't understand this whole thing about getting the selector of a message to a msgbox and why this could be a useful feature. can someone give me a real world example?

when I have a msgbox like [foo $1 $2 $3 $4( I expect the input to be a list of (at least) 4 atoms which is then expanded. [foo $1( expects a list of length 1 - why should I care about the selector? if I need the type of a message for my program logic, this can already be done with [route] (with anythings to [list split 1]-->[list trim]).

so I think expanding $0 to the selector - although reasonable from a theoretical point of view - would be rather pointless in practice. 
I agree with people pointing out that $0 in object boxes already has nothing to do with the argument list and is an inconsistency in itself so I think it's actually quite consistent to also introduce it to msgboxes :-). needless to say that I would find it incredibly handy.

Pd users have been accepting the fact that $0 in object boxes expands to a unique canvas ID for decades now. why do some people think introducing this behaviour to msgboxes could confuse anyone? on the contrary: new users are often surprised that it *doesn't* work the same way as in object boxes.

BTW: I think it's unfortunate that msgbox allows 'anything' messages at all.


Gesendet: Donnerstag, 05. April 2018 um 17:44 Uhr
Von: "Jonathan Wilkes via Pd-list" <pd-list at lists.iem.at>
An: pd-list at lists.iem.at, "sebfumaster at aol.com" <sebfumaster at aol.com>
Betreff: Re: [PD] suggestion: $0 in messages

>>What is wrong with [my_selector(--[list]--[$1(

 
> for instance, [42(--[list]--[$1( will give 42 not float,
> similarly [symbol crabs(--[list]--[$1( will give crabs not symbol
> Also it seems reasonable to just have 1 object box for querying a selector,
> which is a main element of the pd message environment.
 
That makes sense.
 
Are you after the literal selector in this case, or the one that the documentation
implies should be there? For example, if I feed a list with a single floatarg
(e.g., "list 42") to [selector] does it tell me the selector is "float" or "list"?
 

 

 

 

 
>>I don't understand what the word "solution" means here. If users
have repeatedly requested msg box $0 to expand to glist's
ce_dollarzero, why would Pd Vanilla give $0 in msg boxes a
different function that is incompatible with object box $0?
 > here "solution" means a good way to resolve $0 in message boxes..I don't think what users request is necessarily the end all of reasons to implement a feature in a language..
 
$0 in message boxes may be the most often requested feature for Pd.
That certainly doesn't mean it has to be implemented.
 
But filling $0 with something completely unrelated is probably a good way
to irritate your userbase for very little gain.
 
-Jonathan
 
 
 
 
 
 
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