On Feb 3, 2006, at 4:56 AM, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
On Thu, 26 Jan 2006, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
On Jan 21, 2006, at 2:34 PM, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
One major hinderance is your insistence on calling them undefined sets. The fact is that they're neither undefined nor sets. In PureData those things are called messages. Messages have selectors. Selectors are used to select methods.
[...]
Or have I missed any important detail?
"undefined sets" are sets of atoms that are not a symbol, float, pointer, or list. A message can be made up of a symbol, float, pointer, list, or a set of atoms that is none of those types. All of these are messages, all with selectors (albeit sometimes its an implied selector). "A set of atoms that is not a symbol, float, pointer, or list" is an "undefined set".
What you state is again what I already know. You don't explain what is so undefined about them. You don't explain why you call them sets without an adjective saying that they're totally ordered ($1,$2,$3,...), which is a big no-no in comp.sci. Anything called just "set" in comp.sci or standard math is assumed to not have an order assigned to it.
Just because miscellaneous messages aren't selected by your [route bang float symbol list] and labeling the last outlet with "UNDEFINED" doesn't make miscellaneous messages less defined, whatever "defined" means in this case.
If its not an "undefined set", then feel free to suggest alternatives. "undefined list" and "list list" just seems whacky to me. But I guess its as whacky as Pd's list handling.
Btw, in that help patch:
- you forgot to handle the pointer case, which forms a triad with the float and symbol cases.
Please add it.
- you don't need to doublequote the word "selector" everywhere. I
think that it's a pretty standard word when talking about messages in an OOP context.
The idea was to quote keywords related to Pd.
- when you say "with a cast" and "withOUT a cast" you don't say what a cast is.
I think there is a link to the all_about that talks about casting.
The all_abouts are not finished by any means. They are mostly a sketchpad at this point.
.hc
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"Computer science is no more related to the computer than astronomy is related to the telescope." -Edsger Dykstra