On Jan 24, 2008, at 4:14 AM, Frank Barknecht wrote: > Hallo, > IOhannes m zmoelnig hat gesagt: // IOhannes m zmoelnig wrote: > >> Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote: >>> On Jan 23, 2008, at 4:50 PM, Frank Barknecht wrote: >>> >>>> Hallo, >>>> Hans-Christoph Steiner hat gesagt: // Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote: >>>> >>>>> I think they were only added to Max/Pd as typing shortcuts, >>>>> which is >>>>> very weak argument in favor of them. I am not saying we should >>>>> remove them, but I think they should be avoided as a matter of >>>>> convention. >>>>> >>>>> What other programming language has aliases? >>>> It's not that uncommon if you think of operator overloading in C+ >>>> + and >>>> many other languages, or things like "from math import radians >>>> as rad" >>>> in Python. >> >> no language with a native support for fixed aliases comes to my mind >> (apart from max/msp) - but i am sure there are people with more >> insight >> into different languages than me. > > I actually do think, that alias names bare some resemblance to > operator overloading, but of course Pd doesn't support operator > overloading like the other languages, so aliases are the workaround we > use. But the use is similar: Operator overloading includes adding > an additional name and syntax for a function/method: > > A = Matrix.new(m,n) > B = Matrix.new(n,m) > C = Matrix.multipy(A,B) > > now with an overloaded operator* you can also say: C = A*B. > > In my eyes that's very similar to the mtx_mul and mtx_* aliases in > iemmatrix. True operator overloading of course would mean, that you > could user the regular "+" object for matrices in Pd as well. > >>>> Shortcuts can be a very strong argument, and especially in >>>> a graphical language, [t a a a a a a] often is better than >>>> [trigger anything anything anything anything anything anything] >>> >>> I find that it is rarely better to use [t a a a a] and I rarely use >>> any aliases. >> >> the latter is true. >> otoh, i never use [trigger anything anything anything anything] and >> often use aliases. > > To each his own, especially with style questions, but I don't know > anybody else besides Hans who prefers the long version of triggers.
That's what I teach in workshops now, I think it makes for much more readable code for said reasons, so watch out, we are multiplying! :D .hc ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---- Computer science is no more related to the computer than astronomy is related to the telescope. -Edsger Dykstra _______________________________________________ PD-dev mailing list PD-dev@iem.at http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-dev