--- On Fri, 3/20/09, Hans-Christoph Steiner hans@eds.org wrote:
From: Hans-Christoph Steiner hans@eds.org Subject: Re: [PD] style guide idea: [send foo] versus [; foo( To: "dmotd" dmotd@gmx.net Cc: pd-list@iem.at Date: Friday, March 20, 2009, 5:25 PM I am not proposing to limit the use of dollar args in message boxes for dynamic sends, that is a very useful feature. The example you give here, though, is an example of a shortcut for typing, there is no other benefit that I can see.
And at the risk of sounding pedantic, I am going to quote one of my favorite ideas relating to code: "Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute". Typing shortcuts like this message box below almost never save time when you look at the whole picture. Code is read far more times than it is written, so really we should be optimizing for reading rather than writing.
Could you give an example that is more readable than the message box below?
-Jonathan
In Pd, [trigger] is the central mechanism for specifying execution order. Therefore, in the interest of readability, [trigger] should be used as much as possible.
Clearer documentation of the messages boxes would also be a great thing. But you almost anything without ever using a semi-colon in a message box, they are mostly used as a typing shortcut, and many people are confused by them, so I think we should really be limiting them to things like dynamic sends, since that is hard to do in other ways.
.hc
On Mar 20, 2009, at 1:32 AM, dmotd wrote:
hmm.. generally this could be a good idea, but message
sending is most useful
when initialising a number of receives ie:
[loadbang] | |; init-1 6 / |; init-2 symbol foo | |; init-3 -2 \
which is far more elegant than the the trigger/send
replacement, especially
with more fields..
i think its important for students to recognise that
this feature of messaging
has a role to play, rather than trying to veil its
use. in my experience
people will tend to use [send foo] more often when
they start pd, then begin
abbreviating to [s foo] before they appreciate the msg
shorthand [; foo[. but
you are right it is a little confusing for new users..
perhaps this just needs clearer documenting? 'what
does a semi-colon at the
start of a message mean?' in the FAQ?
dmotd
On Friday 20 March 2009 10:38:06 Hans-Christoph
Steiner wrote:
Here's something that I'd like to propose
for the style guide, based
on my teaching experience:
- use [send foo] instead of [; foo( for all sends
that aren't
dynamically set
A lot of people find the [; foo( syntax confusing,
and since it is
commonly used, it often gets in the way of newbies
understanding the
patch. While the [; foo( syntax is definitely
useful for dynamic
sends, I don't think there is an advantage to
using for the regular
sends. So for example:
[dsp 1(
[send pd]
instead of
|; / |pd dsp 1 \
This change highlights the dataflow aspect of the
messages over the
text-style programming with syntax of the message
box. At the very
least, I think that the help patches should use
this style, and I have
started to use this style in my regular
programming and it feels quite
natural once you are used to it. I find it easier
to read.
(as for [s foo] versus [send foo] that's an
issue I want to avoid in
this discussion).
.hc
The arc of history bends towards justice. -
Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr.
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Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.
- from Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
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