Steffen Juul wrote:
On 21/09/2009, at 16.59, dmotd wrote:
or pehaps pd could go down the path of perl/cpan, php/pear etc, where extra non-base libs are housed in a dedicated on demand server where users can automagically fetch / compile and install extras outside of the confines of a package manager.
how much work do you think that would be? - i'm just curious.
could the installer be a "script" that would live where the modular plugin-script for the gui live -- and in that way not conflict nor demand anything from millers branch?
hi steffen,
i'm not particularly advocating this strategy, but thought i'd bring this up as another method of delivery.
certainly these engines are not trivial, there is probably more careful design considerations with on-demand delivery than has been made with the entire extended builder!
i haven't done any real research on existing technologies apart from being a casual user of the two listed above, so i am in no position to argue its merits or the time involved in putting such a thing together.
but such a repository could be a real boost to the pd community, as it could aid individuals to promote their objects and abstractions, provide a convenient method of searching, provide methods of dependency tracking for more involved abstactions, and provide an infrustructure for the distribution of whole pd 'programs'.
this approach is not without its pitfalls and methods for installation and removal would need to be watertight, not to mention the security risks of downloading and installing from a client application.
but at the same time, its something that could exist parallel to other methods of distribution, and may turn out to be quite popular?
so i guess i'd certainly support any investigation into an on-demand client/server.
cheers, dmotd