On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:38:25 +0200 Frank Barknecht fbar@footils.org wrote:
Practically, it's looking more and more like I need to drop the wishful thinking that I can write a useful and easy to understand textbook based around vanilla Pd.
And instead write an easy-to-understand explanation of how to deal with the current situation re. externals, namespaces, nameclashes, library-loading and path-settings when your book is about sound design first and when a lot of these issues are still in flux?
Good advice Frank, it helps me think this through.
The problem is the many examples (you haven't seen even 1/10 of the book yet :) There are almost 500 pages of detailed sound design examples.
Each is constructed so that the student can build and explore the sound from practical patches. I've carefully tested and documented every step of each practical, so even (apparently) small problems like this thing with [pow~] rock the foundations of everything I've done.
I am torn between trying to provide a solid introduction to Pd in its current state and just assuming the students can work these things out for themselves.
As you can imagine, what I want to avoid is lots of caveats and special cases. It's very disruptive to the teaching/understanding flow to have to keep explaining why something doesn't actually work (the way it should) as given. Especially when the reasons for this are not technical and there's no good reason for it to be that way.
I'd rather use [expr~] a bit in the book, as your book will definitely outlast the current situation (from what I've read so far).
Well, for the fluid models I've had no choice, so [expr~] is already included along with a quick explanation because there is no [z~].
Unfortunately I've used [pow~] in dozens of other patches and it's quite unfeasible to go back and rewrite all of them and the accompanying text. It would take me weeks, and so I feel (on an emotional level) quite pissed off because adding [pow~] to vanilla Pd is only a matter of will and possibly 10 mins work to push it into the next build.
If I'm going to aim this at Millers Pd rather than Extended then I feel it's only fair to have some movement making these small but vital improvements to vanilla.
Note that I also think, the math objects (abs~, pow~ etc.) should be part of Pd, and probably symbol2list.
Two of us doesn't make a concensus, but I've got the feeling most would agree.
Can we make this a catalyst to get a definite commitment to patch up vanilla with the missing essentials? I still can't find the message, but I'm sure Miller said something about bringing Cyclone into vanilla.
Can I please ask all the maths heads here to help define what would constitute a mathematically complete object set for audio signal processing?
Right now my 'missing' list includes [z~], [abs~], [ln~], [log~], [pow~], [tanh~], [cosh~]
Andy
Ciao
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__
PD-list@iem.at mailing list UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list