hi,

• there were lots of answers, I'm going to try to reply to them all here,

even if you text doesn't display. I hope that the original authors can
remember their words *

...

...

Since it's a rather complex patch I would prefer for people not to edit it too much

Curious. I make complex patches and I prefer that people would edit
them.

What's surprising? That different people have different wishes about how
their own work gets used?

...

In any case, I don't think that you are stating the real reason. There's a missing (implied) part in your sentence.

I guess "complex" implies that he spent/invested a lot of work on it,
and this in turn implies he is sort of "jealous" (which I _don't_ say in
a negative sense in any way) of his work, and would like to maintain a
certain "control" or "paternity" over it or at least "avoid" (see below)
that someone else does. While this may be contrary to the generous sharing spirit of the open
source community I think it's more than legitimate.

I think you got my intentions/feelings the best. It's not a "complex"
patch because I'm such a crafty guy and want to show off, it's a complex
patch because it's a mature tool with many features (in it's own small
field).

About the "generous sharing spirit", as I said, the patch is (for almost a
year now) free to download in my Pd page for everyone. The patch has
already reached a mature state, maybe a 0.9 version, but there are many
more features that I could put in - some of them just simple user-friendly
stuff, other ones newer features. Also, it's missing the
feedback/experience of a user base to report on eventual errors,
user-friendly features, non-programmer point of view, etc. etc. [a small parenthesis: when I present this patch to musicians, they find it
excellent, and they ask why don't I commercialise it and make profit.
since it was Pd in the first place who let me write the patch, I prefer to
make it available for free]

Not that it would be likely that someone would "steal" the code and make a
payable version of it in a standalone with a nice interface (which Tcl/Tk
can't do), but until I've had the opportunity to put in the rest of the
programmed material, I would want to keep control over it. Until so far I've worked xxx hours on this using my free time, but I won't
do it anymore, I have other priorities. I would want to work on it only
when finding some support (either grants, or having people "comissioning"
features). Not that I'm expecting to become rich with the paypal button
(I'm sure it won't even make up for the time already spent working on
this), but in order to work even further on this I would have to be
cautious, and hope that at some point I get the conditions to sit down,
being sure that the month's rent is covered.

...

...

(and if I get any grants to continue to work on it, it might get even more complex),

Complexity of a patch is not a goal in itself.

Joao didn't say it is a goal in itself, he just prospected a likely
future. While it is not necessary, project often (or even usually) do
grow in complexity as further work is done on them.

once again, the reply I would have written myself.

...

...

although most of the people using it won't be able even to open the
gop.

Why won't they ? and then, why bet that it will work ?

I think he said he doesn't want to bet it will work,

once more, the right answer. in the first paragraph of my mail I wrote
that this patch is to be used by general musicians. people who a) don't
know what Pd is, b) don't care to know what Pd is, c) don't really want to
know what Pd is, d)only installing an external program to open a software
is already a very complex task [I almost went to max/msp to write a
standalone for this], e) just want to click somewhere in the computer and
have the thing pop up and work. And optionally, with a shiny display and
some eye-candy thrown in.

Mathieu, I don't understand where you got the "why bet that it will work"
line. If you mean that the patch will work, so far people with no
experience in Pd can install and run it with no problems, on both win and
mac (if 1000 people get to use this, I would doubt that even 5 will be on
linux).

...

...

Another aspect is to prevent anyone to grab the code and do a commercial version of it.

Licenses do not prevent people from doing things, they just give you a basis for legal action. This is a deterrent,

Well it is almost impossible to prevent anybody from doing anything; a
deterrent is the best you can (reasonably) get in such a context.

Exactly, and if a clear statement is there saying that they can't do it,
but they do it, I would have legal reason to act. Not that it would pay
off anyway, but any deterrent is better than no deterrent. Or I would have
to follow each copy with a couple of handshells.

On Tue, 29 Jun 2010 03:44:37 +0200, Bernardo Barros
bernardobarros2@gmail.com wrote:

Olá João!

Oi, tudo bem?

...

The patch is/will be available free of charge, only paypal donations are accepted (or suggested). But I'm considering using a different license than the general BSD license I usually ship my abstractions with.

I think BSD says that your code can be used also in proprietary software.

exatly, that's what I want to avoid.

...

I would prefer for people not to edit it too much - although most of the people using it won't be able
even to open the gop.

Why? You may want to think about this point. Think this, if somebody else changes your code he/she is not 'stiling' your code, you will have the credit for what you did, and even *you* could use the modified version if you find it is better for what you may want to do in the future. Who knows?

the patch isn't locked, it's open, anyone can go inside and see how it
works. and as I said, the patch itself is a bit complex, so I doubt that
many people will have the time/desire to spend that much time with it.
specially this mob, because hardly anyone here is interested in click
tracks.

I'm all up for suggestions, and will be very grateful for them. What I
want to avoid, is that my work gets "sabotaged" if someone runs away with
this and makes a new software with it (which is very unlikely to happen,
but a possibility) - then all my time would have been for nothing.

João

Pardon my slightly sexist language here, but:

I'm portuguese, that's not even a fraction of the sexism I'm used to :)

IMO the best way to deter is this to have big balls! :)

Write patches that are so amazingly rad and self-confident that not many people would want to change them. And have balls when you encounter those people who actually are able to improve on them. You can make sure you profit from these ubermasters by releasing your patches as GPL, so their balls make your balls bigger, too. :) Or alternatively you don't even give a s**t about others having bigger balls and release as BSD, stating by this that your balls are so big that you don't even care if a mighty commercial company comes along, grabs your work and tries to make money from it. Consider these companies as petty thieves.

I might be repeating some things, here are some comments to that:

• the patch isn't locked, anyone can download it and look at it, and tell

me how it sucks, if they want to - I'm always very grateful for that. I
never had a programming class or read a book about it, for sure many
people here can point me several things that could be better. I'm not sure
many people will, because the patch is already a bit complex (can take
some time to understand it), and it's not something that this community
usually needs. No crafty audio effects, network or haptic interfaces, just
a click track generator.

• I've put xxx hours (3 digits, at least) of work into it, on my own

costs. That would be normal for any project of mine, but if I'm working to
make this a comprehensive tool to be used by the "general user", a
considerable amount of time is spent on user-friendly features, to make
sure that anyone can open it and use it instantly (even basic stuff like
writing a clear tutorial take their time). This kind of work is never
necessary if I'm working on something for myself, evidently.

• I won't put that in front of other priorities or necessary things (like

working to pay my rent) anymore, but will only work further on it if
there's an involvement from the user community. For now the patch would be
at version ~0.9/1, but I have a list of possible features to make it up to
version 2. This development will only be possible if I get some financial
support for it. For this reason I would like to retain control of the
development for now, so that the work doesn't stop in the middle.

• I think that my patch is a good, one, and many reactions from several

kinds of persons have confirmed it, they love my balls. But I want to make
it even better, and independently of how big and shiny my balls are, if
(by a very remote chance, must I say) something interrupts the process,
all my time/effort will have been in vain. Not much use of having big
balls, if you can't show them off. As I said before, several people ask me why I don't go to a software
publisher and make a shareware out of it. If I get asked that that often,
should I be afraid that someone will grab this and make it himself?

In this view, Miller has the biggest balls of dem all. :)

I'm no Miller, that's a given. Besides the evident skills, I don't have a
job teching at a university, which would allow me to program in my free
time. Open source is very fine and dandy, but if you don't have a roof, a chair,
a table, electricity, internet, no code is going to program itself alone.
That's what I'm asking around, what's the best way to try to coordenate
all these together in a pd patch.

João

On 2010-06-29 14:46, Bernardo Barros wrote:

2010/6/29 Frank Barknecht fbar@footils.org:

...

In this view, Miller has the biggest balls of dem all. :)

Is there a legal reason for PD not be GPL?

is there a need for a legal (as opposed to other) reason? maybe there are people, who simply find GPL too restrictive (in terms of freedom).

Maybe it has some code from another project?

maybe another project that is fundamentally incompatible with GPL has some code of Pd in it.

mfgadfrt IOhannes

On Tue, 29 Jun 2010, Frank Barknecht wrote:

On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 11:17:34AM +0200, João Pais wrote:

...

Not that it would pay off anyway, but any deterrent is better than no deterrent.

Pardon my slightly sexist language here, but: IMO the best way to deter is this to have big balls! :)

It really struck me that very grown-up feminists would use the term "having balls" and I'd be somewhat shocked and ask them why they don't find a term that would represent them more and they didn't seem to be understanding the point. It seems that the term has already been made figurative to the extent that it's been "degenitalised" to say the least. WAIT, the actual word I'm talking about is not "balls", it's a word that is normally *reserved* for genitals, and I'm talking about "couilles" [kuj]. It's not at all like "balls" which also meant lots of other things before the meaning we're talking about.

But I don't think it really speaks for the nation (nor that it's the same in other places in the world). I live in a place that also massively thinks it's important to give every profession name a feminine noun (un programmeur, une programmeuse).

_ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ... | Mathieu Bouchard, Montréal, Québec. téléphone: +1.514.383.3801

2010/6/29 Mathieu Bouchard matju@artengine.ca:

And finally, Pd-vanilla insists on supporting Tcl/Tk versions of ten years ago, and on not supporting Tcl/Tk versions of now, and only uses them with the default look, and the default look doesn't look like 2010.

So, I say, though there are lots of wrong things about Tcl/Tk, there are also lots of things said about Tcl/Tk that are wrong.

Interesting. Is there plans for others gui toolkits?

2010/6/30 Mathieu Bouchard matju@artengine.ca

On Tue, 29 Jun 2010, Bernardo Barros wrote:

Interesting. Is there plans for others gui toolkits?

...

no.

...see the archives for reasoning. The question came up earlier this year.

Andras

2010/6/29 João Pais jmmmpais@googlemail.com:

ah, only went to their website now, that's true, Pd's gui looks like it's still the same as in the original Max time at ircam. that's a pity, because the gui and roughness of the display is something that deters many people from joining in - or just thinking that the program is as bad as it looks.

I think a nice GUI, still simple but nice, could even help to read programs. Since it´s a "graphical programming language", the way it looks has to do with programming and readability too. Antialiasing, Bézier shapes, Bézier connecting lines... I don´t know about tc/tk, but there is also other free cross-platform tool kits like qt4.

...

with complex I think I meant "too intrincated to be worth spending your time with".

If anything is not worth spending your time with, then what can I say, just don't do it. But you surely mean something else. There are more causes that made you do things and you haven't spoken them yet.

afaik, that's what I meant. of course each one will decide if it's worth
it or not, but I'm giving a head's up beforehand.

Much of it is an excuse by people who already plenty of reasons to use
MAX over Pd, e.g. "my thesis director requires that I use MAX", "the programmer I trust best prefers MAX", "MAX is preinstalled at my university but Pd isn't, because the sysadmin claims that it's a security issue", or "I can't get any help from my classmates if I use Pd when they all use MAX" or "I saw the MAX advertisement and I tried looking for a Pd advertisement but couldn't find any" or the long list of more practical reasons that are posted on pd-list or #dataflow from time to time and
that I don't need to repeat here.

The look of things does take some room in the reasons, but it tends to be overstated because it's more obvious, it's more on the surface, and it's more the first thing a user thought about.

considering that the person wants not to use only max, many of those
reasons above are environmental constraints decided outside, that the user
has no control about (if he says to the teacher or programmer to stop
using x and to use y instead, they'll most likely ignore him). but if he is given the choice to use something else, if the empirical
aspects (gui, responsiveness, ...) help him go over the beginner stages,
instead of hindering him, it's much more productive. one example is
csound, the most powerful program for synthesis (I never used it in
realtime). many people who do electronics can't use it because they can't
cope with the programming.

considering we're speaking about the "normal person", that doesn't either
say "I want max" or "I want pd", but just wants a modern program that
allows him to work further. if someone for whatever reason says "I really
want pd", then even if some bugs were thrown in just for fun, he would
still work with it (like some people say "I want linux because it's free
and good for the world").

some enhancements were made in vvvv (kind of Pd but for visuals) - the
main developer said that he was inspired by pd, but he put in many things
that made the programming not so efficient - to know the output of an
object just put the mouse over the outlet and the number will show up
(instead of adding a nbox, then deleting it), object name completion, ...
(don't remember other examples). those are small details, but it helps for
the beginner to feel encouraged.

On Tue, 29 Jun 2010, João Pais wrote:

Not that I'm expecting to become rich with the paypal button

BTW I tried to get paid for a contract by PayPal and this was the single most expensive fees I ever got in a money transfer, by very far. Next time, I'm gonna just be very patient and get a real paper cheque be sent over the Atlantic by snail-mail and have it cashed in a proper institution. So even if Desjardins (the cooperative bank of Québec) tells me they need to "freeze" the funds for 7 days or even 14 days, in any case, it's still worth more respect than PayPal. This is not the fault of my employer either, as neither of us could imagine those humongous fees at all. I don't know how it differs for smaller payments. What is your experience ?

(I'm sure it won't even make up for the time already spent working on this),

Don't forget that you also made this for yourself (if you did ?), and that it might have brought you lots of knowledge and experience that you are using in your daily patching ever since. It's like the "time wasted looking for a same bug for 40 hours"... if you take it apart, the usefulness of the hours is much different from what the basic accounting of it would have you believe.

but in order to work even further on this I would have to be cautious, and hope that at some point I get the conditions to sit down, being sure that the month's rent is covered.

I think it works better in situations of vertical integration. Sell customised solutions built around your patch. That's how you get more control on the financing of your patch and of your life. But I don't really have much of a lesson to teach. It's not like I can make a real living out of that alone either, it's more that it seems a lot more likely than waiting for PayPal.

...

Joao didn't say it is a goal in itself, he just prospected a likely future. While it is not necessary, project often (or even usually) do grow in complexity as further work is done on them.

once again, the reply I would have written myself.

I said that, about complexity, because it seemed like a piece of the explanation was missing.

...

...

Why won't they ? and then, why bet that it will work ?

I think he said he doesn't want to bet it will work,

Mathieu, I don't understand where you got the "why bet that it will work" line.

Sorry, I mistakenly wrote a line that looked reverse of what I wanted to say. I mean you can't even assume that most people wouldn't figure out right-click Open. If there's any big incentive to do it, it takes one knowledgeable person to show a newbie a cool thing one can do by opening the gop, and the rest of the newbies to copy the trick from each other.

If you mean that the patch will work,

No, didn't mean that either.

any deterrent is better than no deterrent.

How can you assume that ?

Or I would have to follow each copy with a couple of handshells.

no idea what that sentence means, sorry. (what's a handshell ?)

_ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ... | Mathieu Bouchard, Montréal, Québec. téléphone: +1.514.383.3801

On Wed, 30 Jun 2010, João Pais wrote:

naturally I get experience everytime I patch two objects together. but what's there now has only 5% of what it was in the first version (including a different design, to cope with some of the features I wanted to put in; and lots of features).

And then what ? I have "a patch" that is actually a long evolution in which everything changed except the result and, in some abstract sense, some pieces of formula. All the objects changed, even the file format changed (the original file was not in pd ; i made a converter so that at that point in time, I wouldn't have to remake the patch). It started nine years ago. It's just one example. I also rewrote lots of parts of my externals, and there's at least one external that I wrote _completely_ from scratch FOUR times, in 2001, 2002, 2008 and 2010.

Those are really not the only examples I could give, but I don't think it's necessary to give more. The 5% is irrelevant... many projects go through that... and neither yours nor mine are the biggest free projects to do so. There are methodologies that even expect all code to be in potential transience, over and over... « if it's useful, it's bound to be replaced ».

without counting on much of the effort put in just to (try to) make it usable by anyone - like having four possible spoken languages (and several are already on the list to be added later).

Ok, that really sounds like a feature of a commercial software, unless... what's the total duration of the soundtrack in each language ? Were any of them made by other people for the good of the project ?

which seems to pay off, someone said he just learned the syntax in a couple of minutes, and in 15m had put in his whole piece (not a big one, though).

Now, how can you use word-of-mouth to attract potential contributors ? If you can get other contributors, you can get more value for yourself (in non-money terms), which is something you can count in trying to make the project be more worth your time for yourself. But it's more difficult to do that in the Pd world than outside of it.

even if it's a bit optimistic, if this patch gets around, it can also help to disseminate Pd. but what I mean is that there are many people who really don't want to do more with the computer than send mails and browse. some of the work I put in was to cater for those people.

So, if you knew that from the start, why did you choose to work for those people for free in the first place ?

_ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ... | Mathieu Bouchard, Montréal, Québec. téléphone: +1.514.383.3801

a) I hear you would like to be able to distribute your patch. b) A Pd patch is not easily turned into closed-source for technical reasons.

exactly (that's why I almost went to max/msp for this). doesn't matter
which license it has, the patch itself won't be "locked".

...

I was thinking of instead the BSD to use a CC license, the "Attribution
No Derivatives" one - http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/.

Hm.. this makes the GPL unsuitable again. However, I do believe that the CC licenses are more suitable for artistic works (not that a computer program also can be an artistic work!), where a 'no derivatives' clause makes more sense, because a derivative work might change the context of the original oeuvre thus possibly changing the meaning of the original work completely, which the original creator might like to avoid.

that is true, the spirit of CC might not apply here 100%. I know CC better
than other licenses because they have a very clear presentation, it's easy
to read in 5m.

In terms of software, since you have only little control over how people adapt your patch for their own use (and of course, they probably _would_ like to change at least a tiny thing and forcing them to ask you first adds an imho unnecessary layer of bureaucracy), I suggest that the best options for you (and also for your users) is to 'pro-actively' allow them to make changes. The most important part is the 'attribution' clause, which is covered by both CC and GPL, iirc.

for those who want to change something - which would be the users of this
list, who, btw, almost for sure won't be needing this patch - I would have
nothing against changes (either small ones or putting in new features), as
long as attribution would be there, and they wouldn't disseminate the
patch as the original one [although for now I would prefer that no other
version but the original one is around]. In a real world perspective, I'm almost 100% sure that the people who can
work inside the patch (i.e. all of you) won't be interested in doing so,
because it's a field that doesn't interest you that much. Since anyway I
can't stop anyone from changing anything, I'm sure if someone would need
to adapt something for its personal use, they won't be waiting for a mail
reply from me.

...

In a real world perspective, I'm almost 100% sure that the people who can work inside the patch (i.e. all of you) won't be interested in doing so, because it's a field that doesn't interest you that much.

that's the spirit!

well, how often do you use click tracks? do you have many pieces for
instruments + conductor with complex metrics, and/or tempi changing at
each bar e.g. as in the music of Ferneyhough, Emmanuel Nunes, Carter...
are you familiar with these composers? the patch is available in my pd page for more than a year now, did you
look at it?

I'm just being realistic, it's not a value judgement. If I had made a nice
vocoder with online streaming, that would be much more interesting for
this community.

what are you trying to say with this (apart from offending people's musical background)?

I don't find it an offense not to know the same things I do. just like
when names of bands and performers get mentioned in this list, I don't
know almost all of them - because it's not my "scene". the point would be,
no one knows everything, and there's no offense in that.

...

I'm just being realistic, it's not a value judgement. If I had made a nice vocoder with online streaming, that would be much more interesting for this community.

what's this nonsense about being "realistic"?

it was my estimative on the interests of the people I know from this list
(personally or through mail). if it's nonsense or not, the reactions will
tell. I think there are more people using vocoders - or extrapolate to
patches that allow you to perform electronic in realtime - than writing
music on pen and paper, performed by classical musicians. nothing wrong
with both of them.

on which grounds do you build your reality?

my grounds, from what I know, see and learn. can't give a deeper reply
than that.

what's this nonsense about "this community"? what makes you think that this community prefers phase-vocoders over compositional structures? the available help-patches? the fact that there are few orchestral pieces presented at Pd-conventions?

the posts that I read. I only know personally a couple of the people of
this community, and those I'm sure that have other interests than mine -
good for them -, and am 100% that they don't need the patch I'm talking
about. the other ones I make an idea from what I read that they wrote. If
I'm wrong, then correct me, I apreciate.

i've been publishing software for years now, and i never tried to be "realistic" before publishing it. some of this software has been successfull (and is used by a lot of people; iirc, your click-tracker uses some of my objects) and other has not.

I'm sure I use your objects in 99% of my patches, they're very useful. I don't know what the "realistic" part meant to you. In the patch I've
made it didn't change anything at all on how the patch resulted. I was
just saying that the people who do have the ability to go inside the patch
and look at it (they should all of them be on this list) have other
priorities, which is fine.

pretty all of my code is highly domain-specific, and thus probably not very appealing to you (are you interested in matrix maths? in graphics? in click-tracks? in live-coding? in 3d-sound? in website rendering?). still some of these domain specific things have found there comunity.

none of these points are interesting for me at this moment, so you are
right. only click tracks, because I did a very simple patch for the
rehearsals of a piece of mine, and then I expanded to a "finished" tool.
besides that it's not something that I use that often. but I'm sure that many more people here are interested in those points.

what i want to say is that you should not make assumptions about people whom you don't know at all.

being my tool to support the study/performance (maybe even compostion) of
written complex music, even not knowing most of the people here personally
I'm sure I'm not that wrong when I say that they don't work in this area.
the ones I do know personally are better suited e.g. with a step sequencer.

PS: funnily, i have been helping a bit with a click-track system for 35 independent (click-track wise) voices, using a Pd object i never thought about in the context of click-track.

that sounds interesting, I would like to know more about it - in case it's
an open project.

PPS: for what it is worth: i cannot remember you announcing anything about your click-track patch in the past; even so, the webserver-logs show that it has been downloaded about once per week. i don't think this justifies as being totally unrealistic.

it might be that I didn't (would have to look deep here), but it's on my
page for a long time, which I mention for other things abstractions that I
put out now and then. I've been speaking about it mostly to musicians who aren't Pd users. good
to know that it's been around that often, I tried to put in a visit
counter once, but couldn't get the code right (or maybe doesn't fit into
the wiki structure). or maybe all those downloads was me testing the link :)

I'm not excluding anyone, or criticising "the community" (not a good term,
but I brought it up). If I would be critisicing anyone, it would be me,
for not having the same interests as the majority. maybe with that I wanted to say is that I wrote this patch to cater for
another community (classical musicians that play complex music), and so I
thought that it wouldn't be that interesting to this one. like as if I
take massage courses it's not going to be an interesting topic in the list

• although in the next floss book sprint I could offer massages, instead

of portuguese desserts.

surely someone could get something interesting out of it, but from the
posts I read everyday, and the people I know, it's not something many
people are going to say "at last someone did this". more people might say
that about the bezier curve data-structure abstraction I'm trying to
finish, but have no time for now.

There aren't many things you can be sure about what can work in this community, apart than the fact that if people shared only the things that are sure have a chance of becoming popular upfront, the whole community would stop functioning at all and everybody would just leave.

I always do my things for the 1% or 2% of the community that cares about my patches, because if they can care about my patches, they deserve that
I don't count them as being part of the community that doesn't care about
my patches. There are enough people doing the same, that all those
individual 1% and 2% add up to a very large proportion of what's being produced in the pd community.

_ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ... | Mathieu Bouchard, Montréal, Québec. téléphone: +1.514.383.3801

...

I'm not excluding anyone, or criticising "the community" (not a good
term, but I brought it up). If I would be critisicing anyone, it would be me,
for not having the same interests as the majority.

Do you understand that NO-ONE here has the same interests as the majority of those who are here ?

not exactly the same, but there will be overlaps. that was what I wanted
to say, that I think that there will be more overlaps for other things
than for what I've done. when you put out a new version of gridflow, there are several replies from
people that try it out, etc etc. When I put my abstractions out, I get no
reply at all. I guess it's safe to say that there is more interest in the
pd list for gridflow than for some small abstractions, right?

And then what's that ________ about criticising yourself for not having the same interests as the majority ? I don't understand that (well, I
have hypotheses, but I just wish they're all wrong, so, I'd rather hear you).

I didn't criticise myself, or anyone else - that was my point, there's no
critique to be made. in the previous mail IO thought I was rubbing off
that I know these names and he doesn't. I mentioned the other composers
because it was mainly for their music (and music of the same genre) that I
did the patch.

...

when you put out a new version of gridflow, there are several replies from people that try it out, etc etc.

that point was more about the "general interest of the comunity" argument.
in any case it's good you don't get that many complaints, which shouldn't
mean that there are less users.

Generally speaking, pd-extended made a huge difference in the history of pd-list, that caused a large reduction of "can't compile" posts, and this decreased the apparent activity of pd-list, because message-count as a measure of community activity is about as meaningful as counting how many lines of source code. (well, perhaps a bit more on average, but
there are simple ways to make it lie.)

exactly, that's a great merit. that's why I always ask someone who hasn't
put their code in there if he wants to - it makes it much more
centralised, and easier to access.

...

When I put my abstractions out, I get no reply at all. I guess it's safe to say that there is more interest in the pd list for gridflow than for some small abstractions, right?

Hey, I thought that they were big abstractions, aren't they ?

this isn't part of my abstractions (at /extra/jmmmp), it's a "full
program". it doesn't come with pd-ext, it's on my pd page. I would say
that it's as big as all my abstractions together, but never measured it.

Well, despite its potential far-reaching consequences as a tool for designing pd patches about anything, gridflow is still almost only seen
as a video tool you only start to look at when you get tired of trying to do something with GEM's [pix]. That somewhat limits the potential of it. Is

the next time I try to update my object list (you might know the "short
version" from the floss manual, the original is an xls file), I would try
to include a list of the gridflow objects. I had started talks with a
friend that does data visualisation to make a patch to automatise the
listing, but he bailed out. so I have to do the work by hand.

there something in your abstractions' concept, and the way you write
about them, that limits their potential because most of its potential users don't recognise the contents of your summary of what it's for ? I don't have an idea what a click-track is, but I bet I could find a use for it anyway.

my jmmmp abstractions are very simple utilities, most of them to spare
some repetitive code (snaps~, metrum, ...). therefore, it's very simple to
say in one line what they're supposed to do. of course, that doesn't stop
anyone to go there, grab the code and use it somewhere else. for click track look http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_track. in case
you're interested in them (if you don't want just to do 10m of 4/4), then
my patch might be useful for you. or if you have any
complaints/sugestions, I always want to know how to do it better.

but that goes back to the initial point: this program was made for persons
that play complex music from score, and can need the help of a click track
system that lets them reherase/play in concert. that's why I said in the
beginning that in this list almost anyone fits into that category, and I
won't try to push it into them, just because I find it a useful tool.

...

this isn't part of my abstractions (at /extra/jmmmp), it's a "full
program". it doesn't come with pd-ext, it's on my pd page. I would say that it's
as big as all my abstractions together, but never measured it.

Ok, now it brings this question to my mind : is there anything you can break away from your full programme such that the full programme becomes smaller and the abstractions library becomes bigger, in a manner that the new abstractions are really things that can be useful for any other purpose than the one of the full programme ? It's a big key for making your full programme worth doing : recycle as many parts as possible, or
at least make them recycling-ready.

there might be, but a) I have no interest or purpose on doing it, and b)
there wouldn't be any really useful abstractions coming out of this. in
fact, it might even make my programming slower (because I would have to
manage x programs instead of 1), and the whole thing more confusing to
manage.

...

I had started talks with a friend that does data visualisation to make a patch to automatise the listing, but he bailed out. so I have to do the work by hand.

The GridFlow Index is auto-generated by http://gridflow.ca/svn/trunk/doc/make_index.tcl (which also includes a list of exceptions that have to be made in that patch). You could use
that as an idea for building the index in a wiki format or csv format, whichever you need for flossmanual.

how does this auto generation works? I looked at it, but I don't know tcl,
and can't really learn it now (and really don't want to learn it). Since
there is no submission/peer review process for externals in pd-extra, I
would like to keep updating my list, but in an automatic way. I was
thinking of an approach of something that goes through the folders and
makes a database out of the files(objects) that it finds. not perfect, as
there will be exceptions to manage, but better than doing it by hand
(which is how I did the list so far).

...

if you don't want just to do 10m of 4/4

Well, I don't, but the problem with that, is that I usually want to do
10m of 7/4 instead. ;)

that's the same thing. then you'll be loosing time by typing a score which
has always the same rhythm/tempo. better put a metro with a mod, and you
have it. the music for which the program is made is more like: -http://www.google.com/images?client=opera&rls=de&q=brian+ferneyhough...

• http://www.bmic.co.uk/images/ausgangspunkte.gif

http://www.renewohlhauser.com/image.php?file=files%2Fimages%2Fi60_quotduomet... etc etc

...

how does this auto generation works?

See that the file is loading another source file (on its line 3), which you can find at http://gridflow.ca/svn/trunk/doc/locale/english.tcl ... the only important lines are the ones that say "say". (if you want to
know more about this, I will tell you more).

if/when I come back to manage my object list (and possibly make an update
for the floss book), I'll get to this topic. for now I have no time.

...

I would like to keep updating my list, but in an automatic way.

It might be easier to keep it updated automatically, but it depends what you want to write in that file. If it's essentially just the same
contents as the GridFlow Index pd file, then I can generate the file you want and bundle it with every version of GridFlow.

for the public, the same structure as is in the floss book: class name,
short sentence with description. a better version would show for which OSs
it works, and maybe some other internal remarks to the list manager.

...

that's the same thing. then you'll be loosing time by typing a score which has always the same rhythm/tempo. better put a metro with a mod, and you have it. the music for which the program is made is more like:

Ah yeah, that's a good example score-wise.

But then, the problems with such scores are things like the flirting too close to the "uncertainty principle" (tempo is used for a time too short to be really felt) and the "consonance" of tempos (13:10 can be quite
hard to distinguish from 4:3 in many circumstances, just like such ratios of frequencies can). But you picked extreme scores, and I can see very well how pieces of much lesser complexity than that can be a lot more followable by the ear _while_ at the same time having much of a use for a complex programmable super-metronome.

I won't go into the discussion if that notation makes sense - that's an
old one, and not really productive. anyway, for good composers and
performers, it's important to write/perform everything as it is there. for
composers who just go into the train and copy the formulas, they won't
notice the difference, and performers usually notice that they really
don't care as much.

but it doesn't have to be used only by this people. the harpsichord
teacher where I studied, Robert Hill (brother of the best harpsichord
builder around, Keneth Hill), usually works with electronic metronomes to
mark the barlines, in order to practice his rubato while playing (barocke
or even earlier music, that is).

...

exactly (that's why I almost went to max/msp for this). doesn't matter which license it has, the patch itself won't be "locked".

How easy is it, to unlock a MAX patch ?

have no idea. surely possible, but much harder than unlocking a Pd one.

...

that is true, the spirit of CC might not apply here 100%. I know CC
better than other licenses because they have a very clear presentation, it's
easy to read in 5m.

Something you spend over 6000m of your time on, deserves more than 5m for the license.

yes, that's why I asked here first.

On 06/30/2010 06:12 PM, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:

...

imho this would not be worth the effort, and a horrible idea to make deliberatly unreadable pd-patches...

If you keep on saying things like that, I will make a patch obfuscator patch just so that the content of threads about obfuscation would shift away from hypothesis and towards real issues. That would be worth it, in terms of getting the debate to evolve past what pd-list was saying a decade ago or so.

i meant using obfuscation (and making an obfuscatore for using it) is not worth it. if a obfuscated patch is very ingenious than it might make sense to spend the time to decipher it. if not, than it is easy to build everything yourself anyway. i have attached my proof of concept pd-obfuscator. (only random positioning, but adding deletion of comments and making cryptic names should be not too hard) it was quite easy indeed, and i learned that pd is not as bad for manipulationg strings as i thought it was. and i did not know before that the (quite powefull) list-objects are in vanilla(?).(they are not in (my) help-intro.pd)

bis denn! martin