I have one thing to add in reference to hiding all the guts. Often, just when I think I'm on the verge of understanding a patch, I click on 2 or 3 objects and discover that there's far more than I thought. The hardest thing is remembering which input or output is sending which piece of data. It's all okay, except when I open a subpatch and find another one inside it, and another inside that, and 2 or 3 different copies of another one. Of course, when building a patch for use, then whatever works, but in tutorials I kind of like to be able to see most of what's going on at once. Maybe, if there are abstractions that are used often, they could be explained first in the line of tutorials, so by the time you get to pretty complex stuff, some of the hidden parts are already familiar.

-Chuckk

Date: Sun, 6 Nov 2005 14:05:54 -0500
From: Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans@eds.org>
Subject: Re: [PD] Pd tutorials!
To: dafydd hughes <dafydd61@sideshowmedia.ca>
Cc: pd-list@iem.at
Message-ID: <63fb860e646b0f2848262caf62e2c5

d8@eds.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed

On Nov 4, 2005, at 10:41 AM, dafydd hughes wrote:

> Hi HC
>
> These look great.  Can we show them to the folks here at InterAccess?

All code that I write is GNU GPL'd, including Pd patches, so do
whatever you want as long as you share your modifications.

> Also, I started a series of basic Digital Audio/Pd tuts, and I'd love
> feedback on what I have so far, and to see if anybody would find them
> useful (drafts, not final product!):
>
> http://www.sideshowmedia.ca/audiotuts.zip

These are quite nice, very good interactive + visual examples.  I have
a couple of comments:

- Nice use of standardized elements!  We should have a set of standard
elements for all Pd docs and tutorials.  There is a patch that I
started with this idea in mind, I view it as a wiki, so people should
add more standard elements to it:  (in CVS)
doc/pddp/standard_gui_elements.pd

- I think the guts should always be hidden in a subpatch.  Only the
essential elements to illustrate the principal should be on screen.
That way it makes the overall page look much less intimidating.  The
idea is to have each patch as simple as possible so that its very
approachable.  Then, if people are curious, they can open the guts.

- I then all help and tutorial patches should all fit on 800x600 at
least, maybe even 640x480.  Pd can run on old computers, which may be
in use in many parts of the world.  Ideally, the Pd tutorials would be
visible on a computer than can run Pd.

I posted some content to the wiki that Ben started a while back:

http://puredata.org/docs/workshops

I think this should be the center of this discussion so we all can keep
track of things.

.hc