it looks like the future of pd-extended is going to be 'deken'.
what to do then about portability?
i make patches for people who don't know a lot about programming.
plus they are on Mac, i'm on Windows.
one time downloading the right version of Pdext is enough;
i can give them my patches and they just run them.
when i make changes, new features: there's no hassle for them.
using Vanilla & deken is something else.
declaring a library in the patch is not enough.
including the library in the patch-package works only on the same type of OS;
Windows & Windows, Mac & Mac, (Linux & Linux?).
one method could be a deken-connected feature to automatically download a declared lib when it's not present.
what about updates or changes in a lib in that case?
the organisation of pd-ext somehow included a kind of gate-keeping, which resulted in a stable Pd-system.
i'm still using Pdext 42.5 and the included libs a lot (because of the old machines in my installations). the same libs are functional in Pdext 43.4.
so one could argue that there's no great need for a portability design. just download everything that's necessary (and available) and it will work for quite some time.
?
rolf