On Thu, Sep 13, 2007 at 03:32:39PM +0200, Frank Barknecht wrote:
Hallo, Frank Barknecht hat gesagt: // Frank Barknecht wrote:
This is a "me too"-message from me: For the same reasons as Thomas I'd prefer to stick with "object". While "class" is more correct, I think the difference is something only computer scientists are interested in and Pd has a tradition of not always following the path of mainstream computer science anyway, because it's not a tool mainly targetting computer scientists but one targetting artists. I'd say,, reserve the term class for pd-dev.
It occured to me that it may sound like I'd try to "dumb down" Pd for artists, which is not my intention, so I'd like to clarify a bit:
We're talking about what term to use in pdpedia for the descriptions of the available building blocks for patches, mainly externals and abstractions. When building patches, what users (scientists and artists) deal with, are objects. The only thing you can do with a class when building a patch is to make an instance of it: an object of the class.
So in the pdpedia context using the term "object" for the list of building blocks in my view wouldn't be wrong at all. As "object" also is the term that is generally used when talking about Pd patches here--as in: "Just put an [osc~] object into your patch to make a sine wave." Nobody says: "Instantiate the [osc~] class to make a sine wave."--it is perfectly valid to use "object/symbol" on pdpedia. IMO at least.
Once again Frank provides the concise voice of reason! I agree with 100% with this in the case of pdpedia and most every day usages. However I see nothing wrong with establishing a rule of thumb for educators and other people describing pd, to follow when they do definately want to describe the "class of objects" of type [osc~] not just to say "put an [osc~] object into your patch" but for something more complicated, and call this the "object class" like Matju says. For example if someone is explaining about what externals are. That is a good and every-day intuitive use of the word "class" for normal people as well as being acceptable to us abnormal computer scientists (as Matju pointed out already).
Best,
Chris.