>   #!/bin/bash
>   echo "this goes to stdout"
>   echo "this goes to stderr" 1>&2
>(Which should have been obvious from the familiar "pd -stderr 2>&1")

Yep I use a similar trick in UNIX find, like trying to find .pd files:
- find / -name "*.pd*" -type f -print 2>/dev/null


>I am thinking of the ideal version of this, an object that would give you an inlet for STDIN then two >outlets for STDOUT and STDERR, plus a status outlet and an inlet to set what to run.  It could be >something like this:

>[process /usr/bin/python]

>Then you could send python bits to it via the first inlet, and receive the reply via the outlets.  So >something like a cleaner [shell].

NIce hc. That's an interesting object, sending messages in a simple way to a shell process running in the background should be fairly easy. Just didn't get what you mean by status outlet..

best regards,
Pedro
--
Pedro Lopes
contacto: jazz@radiozero.pt
website: http://web.ist.utl.pt/Pedro.Lopes