On 4/3/06, Mathieu Bouchard matju@artengine.ca wrote:
On Mon, 3 Apr 2006, david golightly wrote:
And we don't necessarily need to mention "pointers" on the Wikipedia site
Pd has only three atom types and "pointer" is one of them. That's certainly worth mentioning. It's also worth mentioning because it was the first big new feature in Pd, ever.
I agree. I've searched in vain for equivalent features in other audio software, and I want other potential users to understand the value of this feature. Being a composer first, I lean towards not making the Wikipedia article a tutorial, but an exposition in plain language. I don't see most musicians getting past the first paragraph of the separate Wikipedia article on Data Structures. The explanation on the Pure Data page is good, but I still think some potential users will stop reading before they get to Data Structures. Someone looking on Wikipedia is probably at the point of deciding whether to learn Reaktor, Max, Csound, or whatever else, and IMO pointers are why they should choose Pd. That's just my opinion. It's also possible that people who can't follow it won't be interested in Pure Data in the first place...