Roman Haefeli wrote:
This is obviously a loop. All this has been said and proposed before in the
thread [1], that has been posted by alex porres a few posts back. Sorry for
not having brought any new perspectives into the discussion, but having just
repeated what has been said already.
Hi Roman,
I think the fact that this is an eternally-recurring topic points to
just how irritating this one little foible of Pd is -- it's confusing to
newbies, and it's annoying to more experienced programmers.
I want to address the point you brought up in the first message:
$0 in messages is only special in the sense, that it has no meaning at all.
it wouldn't make it less special to use it as a container for canvas
identifier in message boxes. $-variables in objects have a different meaning
from $-variables in message boxes, no matter what. I understand, that it
would make patching often a lot easier, but conceptually it would be
exceptional to make $0 in message-boxes be replaced by the
canvas-identifier, while all other $n-variables in message-boxes get
replaced by the n-th element of the incoming list.
But $0 is exceptional in *all* cases! Its use in objects has a very
different meaning than the use of $1, $2.... in objects. Yet no one
calls for eliminating $0 from object boxes -- why is the same argument
repeated over and over as justification for its prohibition in message
boxes? I just don't understand this.
If only (as many have said) "$0" had been written as "#0" or something
else completely un-encumbered with ideas about what "$" must mean in Pd.
The only thing i don't really get: Why seems there some agreement, that
using $0 to get the selector could be confusing?
Well, I think that would make things even worse - further muddying the
waters, as it were, by adding yet another meaning to the dollar-sign. I
don't see it as any more consistent or "pure", given the unique role
that $0 has in *all* cases.
When all is said and done, things in the Pd world will go on as they
have, and we won't really suffer because of this one little grain of
sand in our shell. But we probably will continue to discuss it every
few months!
Best,
Phil
http://www.pkstonemusic.com/pubmusic.html
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