On Nov 26, 2005, at 2:59 PM, Krzysztof Czaja wrote:
Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote: ...
believe that abbreviations in code cause a lot more trouble than they
save. Something along these lines: "Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer
what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings
what we want a computer to do." -Donald Knuthwhich is why instructions for a computer should be kept short. In Knuth's WEB there is @d, not @define, @i, not @include, etc. Likewise, library prefix should not clutter the content. Its main purpose is to instruct a computer where it is supposed to look for an object's definition. For a reader of a patch "cyclone/" means no more than "nonstandard/".
Well, everyone makes mistakes, even Donald Knuth ;). Basically all
recently designed languages encourage long descriptive names with fewer
symbols and more words (SmallTalk, ObjC, Java, Python, Ruby, etc.). I
would like Pd to be in this camp too.
I, for one, do not have an endless memory for abbreviations. I think
I share that trait with the majority of population. Consider
yourselves fortunate if you do have such a memory, but please humor
the rest of us.why the irony? I proposed cc as an option, after all. But ok, I can live without it, although it is only one little, simple to remember, hard-to-misspell abbreviation with a slight pun in it.
Actually, I wasn't being ironic at all, but totally literal. Many
coders do have an amazing ability to remember a seemingly limitless
number of abbreviations. From my experience, these coders tend to like
C. Many other people cannot remember very many details like all of the
symbols, abbreviations, etc. in C. When I discovered SmallTalk, it was
an epiphany. I could just read the code like sentences. So I try to
apply that style to all my coding.
I think that Pd also has this kind of potential. Its almost physical
nature makes it feel familiar to many people. And if the namespace
could be clean, simple, and easy to read, then it would be a much more
accessible language. Yes, it would take up more space, but I think it
would also lead to less bugs. And really, if you want very compact
code, you can load the libs, and then you don't need any prefix, not
even "cc".
.hc
There is no way to peace, peace is the way.
-A.J. Muste