[Pdmtl] ANN: pdmtl abstractions library 1.0

[Alexandre Quessy]

Bonjour tout le monde,
Nous venons de lancer la librairie PdMtl abstrations. Voir
http://wiki.dataflow.ws/PdMtlAbstractions pour en savoir plus. Le
reste du message est en anglais. :)
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Hi all,
The Pure Data Montréal Abstractions library 1.0 is out ! Try it while
it is fresh. ;)

See http://wiki.dataflow.ws/PdMtlAbstractions for download and install
informations. It is in the process of being added to pd-extended build
system. It is currently under abstractions/pdmtl in the Pd CVS. Many
thanks to http://goto10.org for the subversion development server
which we use. (WARNING : the structure, name and usage of these
abstractions are very likely to change in the next versions)

The main concept in this library of abstractions is to group the
abstractions by their function rather than their author. It is an
answer to the disorder in the large amount of abstractions and
externals for Pure Data. We propose this organic classification system
as a solution for reorganizing the huge mass of code in the Pd
externals and abstractions. See http://puredata.info/dev/PdLibraries
for a discussion around this topic. The library also proposes methods
for unifying the usage of GOP (graph-on-parent), audio samples and
much more. It is also intended as a wrapper for very useful externals
for Pd that are often named badly or not well know.

Pure Data (see http://puredata.info/ ) is designed to offer a wide
range of low level objects. That is why we believe that higher level
abstractions must be created and standardized for their use by
beginners and advanced users as well. This accelerates the learning
curve and makes it very fun and fast to use. The algorithms are hidden
in the abstractions but are still very easy to read, as an abstraction
can be opened and modified.

The library contains abstractions of Thomas O. Fredericks (such as the
sample_id format), Alexandre Quessy (such as the Muzaq musical
abstractions) and Patrick S. Coulombe (the Lem ongoing audio patches).
Even if the library uses the name "Montreal", it is open to the
participation of people from anywhere and could even aim to become the
standard format for Pd externals and abstractions names, avoiding name
clashes and users' confusion. See the discussions on
http://puredata.info/dev/PdLibraries to understand a bit further how
this represents our suggestion as a solution for the organization of
the Pure Data extensions.

Any comments, patch contributions, threats or congratulations are welcome !

--
Alexandre Quessy
http://alexandre.quessy.net