hi Hans,
the real problem is namespace pollution. Just imagine people's anger, when their patches are broken by someone adding yet another little odd external to cvs build system, and the name they have chosen for their abstraction changes meaning without even a slightest warning.
The predefined set should not exceed a few hundred names, with every addition carefully thought out and clearly advertised. Otherwise, Pd will grow into an unmaintainable, amorphous monster, that collapses under its own weight.
All predefined classes should have their functionality cast in stone. Everything else should be explicitly declared for a patch.
The actual evil are not libraries, but using the "-lib" option, and likewise the "-path" option, as Pd's name resolution mechanism.
Krzysztof
Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
Basically all of the issues surrounding using libs can be eliminated by
compiling externals as individual objects. I have been working towards
this for a while, so that you don't need to edit any prefs in order to
have access to all of the available objects. The only downside that
has been confirmed with the individual files vs. libraries is that
someone has to do the work to convert libs into individual objects. I