ok, browsing the pd list archive for some data on "this has been discussed over and over", what I found was many discussions about initbang, making the external work in vanilla, things like that, but no real discussion on why not having it in vanilla.

I can see, from a couple of years ago, proposals for initbang in vanilla, but No actual development on the matter (namely, Alexandros Drymonitis and Dan Wilcox - source) 

I also see a thread opened by jonathan wilkens in 2010, commenting on a patch to add initbang/colsebang to vanilla from 2006 (ID: 1544041), asking "what's the story on it?", saying that he's seen "repeated  hopes from various developers that these objects be included as internal objects in pd." - but this thread also had no feedback/conclusion - source

Going back earlier, I see a message from 2008, where Matt Barber asks if initbang is on vanilla and IOhannes replies "no, and I'm not sure why", after that Matt Barbour "claims for its inclusion to, again, no response at all - source

And this, about 10 years ago, is when gave up digging deep through the mail archive trying to find a clear rejection why initbang should not be added to Vanilla. Ok, I might have missed something, but I did my best, and what I have makes me challenge this notion that this has been discussed and denied over and over. By the way, I have to say it's not the first time I hear something has been fully discussed on the mail list, but I actually do not find a clear closure on the matter...

I can ask again if someone had a source or fill me in on the veredict. I've also seen a same discussion come up, but when I respond to it, I give the source and what came out of that.

Don't get me wrong, I don't wanna reissue an argument that has been going on and on. And I don't wanna raise the same case once more and argue in favor of it when it has been turned out many times. It's just that I don't see it, can't find it. On the contrary, I found several requests in over many years that simply did not get real attention... but if there's in fact a clear and strong rejection, I don't really care, I won't mind, I'll find me another solution even if it involves making my own external - which is to say this is not a selfish motivation, I just think this could be an important request to be, as it really seems like a wish from many members of this community. 

cheers

2017-10-20 21:17 GMT-02:00 Alexandre Torres Porres <porres@gmail.com>:
2017-10-20 18:19 GMT-02:00 Roman Haefeli <reduzent@gmail.com>:

Though I mostly agree with you, I disagree with the notion that raising
the same thing several times is necessarily a bad thing. I'm living in
a country where the people directly vote about some decisions. We would
live in medieval times still - so to speak - if we hadn't voted about
the same thing many times. 10 years later, the (Pd-) world might have
changed a bit and suddenly implementing [initbang] in Pd-vanilla is
considered nice and pretty.. How can you know?

That was exactly what I was thinking, thank you for pointing that out so I can give you a +1

And yeah, 10 years ago was sorta ages ago for Pd, many things have happened, like the demise of Pd Extended. There's this libpd thing and the need for it to be more self sufficient. And this feels like such a basic core functionality that I really wonder why not to have it somehow. So I really wonder if the reasoning from 10 years ago is still as pertinent now for the community as whole.

cheers