First, let me say that I have got some things running really stable - ie. generative MIDI output, and Gem, once I upgraded to the experimental version, and modified some things in my patches, to get around limitations of that version.
However, my biggest problem with PD is still that things crash all the time, but nobody ever can say why, and I'm not sure if things are improving. Particularly, when working with digital audio, there seem to be some problems, as well as in the opening and closing, and modifying of files, generally. I'm not sure if this is a WinXP issue, or what - but I'm having such problems even with "core" PD, no externals added, just modifying Miller's example patches. The frustrating thing is, others don't seem to be able to replicate it, and sometimes even I can't replicate the error.
But still - unstable is unstable, and for a live performance or installation, that's a BIG problem. What am I to do if PD crashes in the middle of a 45 minutes piece with live musicians???
The end result is that I may be forced to use commercial software like Reaktor, when it would be nice to use something open source, and where I would be ready to share the results of my patches with the PD community.
~David
On 10/14/06, Adrian nordbaer@gmail.com wrote:
I'm sorry for this more like OT, it's just my thought about improving PD and it's externals in another way.
I'm struggling ...
PD is one of the best tools for making people learn/experiment/perform/interact digital/electronic art at it's best. But where are the people that are PD's target. I'm trying to suggest that PD should try to follow a Popper-alike way of developing. Make it easy accessable for the people and use their input. Except if PD and it's externals are purely egoistic developments, which i don't think is the case ;)