Re: [microsound] Mac vs PC (linux information)

[Tjeerd Sietsma <tsietsma@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > It's the 'recommended' Windows installer that installs all those
> > sometimes pre-alpha libraries that can make your system instable.
> 
> It is true that some externs can cause crashes and headakes.  But this
> was the case with MaxMSP as well.  In fact, when MSP layer was added
> it was it that cased the most havoc.  People still bought it and were
> happy.  I don't understand why most people are happy with buggy
> software if they pay for it while they whine when it's free...  Don't
> take it personally, I'm just generalizing and thinking out ASCII.

I'm not. My guess is that people who use free software are in general
more critical than users that 'just buy' software and complain more
(in a civilized way) to make developers enhance the software.

> On the other hand I'm not even sure if what I'm saying applies to
> today's MaxMSP.  I haven't used it in years (but I did have seen it
> crash in some life performances....).

I've never seen PureData crash. It had a few glitches once but that
was due to the fact I was using Windows and had a bunch of shitty
programs installed. My bad.

> > Compared to Max/MSP you do spend more time patching your patches,
> > because Max/MSP contains many prefabricated objects.
> 
> Ah.  That's whole different story.  A lot of patches have been
> provided by the community over the years.  Keep in mind that pd has a
> smaller user community and hasn't been around for so long.  Some users
> have started making some abstractions to make the whole thing more
> user-friendly for the newcommers:
> 
> frank Barknecht's RRadical project: 
> http://puredata.info/community/projects/rradical/RRADicalWiki
> 
> David McCullum's abstractions:
> http://mentalfloss.ca/sintheta/html/downloads.html
> 
> and here you will find pdjimmies (jimmies port) by Zack Settel:
> http://tot.sat.qc.ca/fra/nslam.html
> 
> There are probably others around.  But these should get you started.

Great resources! Thanks!

> On the other hand, I think that the point of using pd is to roll your
> own, but I do agree that having a collection of patches around is good
> so that you don't reeinvent the wheel.

Me and another student of my school are trying to set up a pd-site
facilitating
webspace for this kind of stuff.

> > Costs are irrelevant. I like the b/w interface though, and prefer
> > PureData instead of Max/MSP. Also Max/MSP doesn't run on Linux *yet* :)
> 
> I, too I'm waiting for the port :).... GPL'd :-)
> 
> > I agree, but opensource software is often well documented as all
> > software should be. I didn't know the toggle in PureData could also
> > remember numbers, if I only knew many of such details earlier it would
> > have saved me days.
> 
> ok, well, the documentation lacks certain details.  But it is fairly
> complete.  You can learn a lot about programming with pd if you read the
> manual and study the examples and help files.

The helpfiles are very good indeed. But this incompleteness makes
learning
PureData more like a challenge. As Edsgar W. Dijkstra once said:
programmers
get their 'kick' from programming not because they know exactly what
they're
doing, but because they don't know exactly what they're doing.

> > I totally agree. But as you've said yourself, programs like Rosegarden
> > are years behind, and this was exactly my point, the reason why most
> > people choose to use Windows and/or MacOS instead.
> 
> Yeah.  The thing is that I started using Linux because I wanted to get
> away from the mainstream apps :)  I'm sorry but sometimes I assume
> that everyone else wants to do just that, although I know I'm wrong.

I sympathize :) I used Windows and it's apps since '96 and after eight
years
I come to the conclusion that I don't want to use Windows EVER AGAIN.
Another
thing is that when you've seen as many mainstream apps as I have (which
you
probably will) you would agree that it really doesn't matter which app
you
use or which keyboard shortcuts you are used to.

Tjeerd
-- 
  Tjeerd Sietsma
  tsietsma@xxxxxxxxxxx


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