Here's my summary of the proposals mentioned here:
I agree that $0 is totally arbitrary and is not inherintly bound to
object boxes. I think this strongest proposed fix is to introduce $$
which works in both object and message boxes, its a nice parallel to
Bourne Shell syntax. On that note, I think this should also come with
Bourne Shell's $# for count of argument and $@ for a list of all
arguments. I think $$, $#, and $@ should work in both message and
object boxes. So:
messages:
- $$ provides unique ID number
- $# provides argument count from incoming message
- $@ provides the list of arguments from incoming message
objects:
- $$ provides unique ID number
- $# provides argument count from incoming message
- $@ provides the list of arguments from incoming message
Now, all we need is someone to code it :) I am certainly willing to
try such a patch in the Pd-extended test builds. And if it is proven
to work without causing problems, then it could be included in final
release, and hopefully work its way into Pd-vanilla as well.
I guess the place to start is someone putting together a proposal wiki
page so we can document all the details. Here's the place for it:
http://puredata.info/dev
.hc
Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant to know how to
realize his wishes. Now that he can realize them, he must either
change them, or perish. -William Carlos Williams