On 27/12/06, Tim Blechmann tim@klingt.org wrote:
Do you mean that it would be difficult to figure out what's a DSP object and what's not, in terms of figuring out what's in the DSP chain?
from the user point of view, i think, it's a good idea, to have a specific separation between dsp and messaging, because both work with very different concepts.
Maybe I shouldn't be jumping into this discussion so late, with little programming knowledge, but…
If we're to think about the metaphor of dataflow languages, which is essentially modelled after electronics and circuits (and I'm thinking about analogue circuits, although I'm sure a similar argument could be made for digital), then there should be no difference between "control" and "audio," because they're the exact same thing.
We might think that separating control and audio makes perfect sense from a user standpoint---I even think so. But I'm pretty sure that we only think that way because we've learned to think within the dataflow paradigm. If this distinction never existed, we wouldn't think twice about mixing the types, because there wouldn't be any types.
I remember learning the difference between floats and ints. From a user's standpoint, why bother? I remember resigning myself to "well that's annoying, but I guess it's necessary." Why does Pd not distinguish, but Max does?
As far as I understand, the difference between control and audio data exists purely for computational efficiency, and has no real conceptual basis. (Maybe I'm asking for a beatdown with that statement…)
D!