If you are interested about "how people learn Pd" it is informative to peruse the video of Miller's introductory course for undergraduates at UCSD, possibly also the written transcript of the course and all the patches which Miller developed and used in presenting his lectures
Apropos the thread of the "subject:" line here -- One thing that struck me was the repeated number of times that the question of scaling appears Miller's lectures, and how long it takes (at least for a portion of the audience) until the algebra/mechanics of the scaling formula become at all familiar, or feel "natural" to these students, if ever. It seems to me that many people have been mis-educated in mathematics, and have an uphill battle to incorporate any formula into their thinking -- even if the formula has only a few steps and just a few variables involved.
To watch Miller's lectures and know/appreciate this fact about "simple formulas" seems worthwhile knowledge about Puredata and about math/science education in general.