pd usability and externals compilation - Pd-list

22 Oct 2004


      hi all
Just wanted to say few things about PD after having spent some days 
failing to compile the externals under OSX. I have been sending emails 
to the list askign for help as i was unable to do this. There were some 
people giving me tips about makefiles etc... but still i havent been 
able to do it, but i am getting closer :)
I guess emails like this are everywhre in linux mailing lists but i also 
think that they are necessary once in a while not to forget about the 
issuet that worries me.
i am able to program on python, javascript and some other scripting 
languages, to patch on PD and MAX, and I have no problem using windows - 
ok not very complex, but i mean i am used to deal with "mission 
impossible" problems since windows has been in the past an endless 
source of them -. I was using SuSE linux on my laptop and compiled PD 
and some other applications, i configured my winmodem and took me two 
days to find out. Now  i want to install Ubuntu linux on my new 
powerbook. I am not supertechnical person but i dont give up in 2 min 
when i have a problem
So I was wondering what does happen with the people that have less 
technical knowledge than me for example students (i teach sometimes 
multimedia stuff) or musicians with no computing background. My bet is 
that probably they would end up using MAX/MSP. I know many musicians 
that love to use pd patches that they dont create themselves and they 
dont know constructing anything on pd, if they have to spend more that 
30 min on seting up the system they will drop PD to use another more 
user friendly app like MAX. Some of you might say that then PD is not 
for you, but i dont really think this should be this way. I think we 
should work to develop a tool tht can be used by savy users but also by 
non experience users (of course they would use it in a different way), 
some people might want to create very new and complex stuff and PD is 
great to do this, but some other may be would just like to use that 
amazingly complex patch that the first person created.
Once in a while some MAX user asks in the Pd list how to create an 
exacutable of a PD patch, the answer is that you just distribute PD 
together with the patch because its free open source. I think this is 
very nice idea but if the patch this person is distributing uses an 
external and somebody has to spend days searching and asking on mailing 
lists how to change the makefile and stuff like this its hardly of any 
use for loads of people.
You all know this of course, this is a general problem in the linux 
comunity. A musician friend of mine said me that he believes that 
musicians using linux spend more time setting up the system than 
actually working with it to make music. This is not true but in a way it 
is not that wrong if i think about my last 2 weeks (i went crazy too to 
set up python + all the libreries i need on my machine). This opinion 
gives as well a flavor of his experiences with linux and open source 
tools. We should work to change this opinion.
If we really want to introduce all kinds of people to PD  we should find 
easier ways to set it up, for example the latest drag-and-drop 
installation for mac its a good move as it is closer to the way mac 
users think, despite that it is inconsistant or not from a technical 
pint of view. The only reason for me to keep trying setting the 
pd-externals up is that i really belive I must try as hard as possible 
to use open source tools. But many others out there dont believe this. 
They think open source is a nice idea but they want their work done 
eficiently and fast.
my 2 cents on this.
agur bat
-- 
enrike