if you bang the 7 17 message, and then bang the message box that gets set, pd outputs to console:

float: no method for '717'

But if you then save the patch, reload, and bang that same message box, it outputs correctly. 

Is that a bug?  Surely if behaviour is different between a live patch and a saved patch, that constitutes buggy behaviour?

>matt's  `[set $1$2, bang(` construct is really only useful if you want
to send the data to a messagebox (but why would you want to do that?)

I often use [set $1, bang ( for things like setting a message box with the output of openpanel, and then also triggering the message.  Had no idea that it didn't work for floats.