> I'm not sure what those are or why we need them, could you kindly
> explain?
I'll explain using Python, which I am the most familiar with. Each
file of code is a module, which can contain an arbitrary number of
functions or classes. Each of these has their own addressable
namespace, but the key thing is that the module itself has its own
namespace too.
Ok, got it.
As I understand it, in ChucK there is nothing similar to an import.
Files do not have explicit namespaces, though one is created if a
file is sporked as a shred. But this is not addressable, it merely
keeps private data in each process from colliding. A further
limitation is there can be only one public class in a file.
Yes, you are right. As you might've seen in the list archives; we just went trough a process where everybody could list his/her wishes and sugestions for chucK and a import/inclusion process turned out to be very high on that list.
Likely this will (have to?) bring a more sophisiticated namespace method with it. In my own experience the current method covers the needs of chucK. Another matter is that in the past far more people ran into a desire to have seperate elements share their namespace then that ran into the desire for more seperation. Perhaps this will change as imports/inclusions make it easier and more inviting to start larger projects.
Oh yes, I know about the audicle and have tried it. Someday this
might rule the world. But it's still not a word. :-)
Ah, sorry, for a moment I thought you were unaware of the Audicle. Personally I like how it's named; it's a new thing, arguably it's a completely new *sort* of thing so it has a new name. The same hold true for "spork".
"Cubase" isn't a word either yet that doesn't seem to cause any confusion or loss of sales either compared to "Logic", "Sonar" or "Live" which are words.
> SuperCollider has a very cool name, I admit. Future writers might
> engage in
> long articles interperting the act of chucking something in
> comparision to
> the effect of it colliding against something else *ducks*.
This would be good fun and is not totally a joke. As a poet I would
argue that how we name things and what language we choose to describe
them affects how we work with them in an intimate way.
Yeah, absolutely. SC-fanatics will likely interpert the analogies with a different emphasis, could be a fun debate :¬)
One of the reasons I like ChucK is that the expressive use of the
language, especially the chuck operator, makes good sense to me for
the domain of audio operations.
Same here. After a long time of thinking like "sending this there, then making foo go to bar and seeing what happens" the "ChucK" name might well become more apealing to you. I mean; we realy are sending stuff in directions, sometimes like a ninja throwing stars, at others more like a drunk garbage-man. Perhaps ChucK will once get so mature and stable that "chucking" no longer seems like a apropriate analogy, perhaps at that stage we will have to considder a different name that expresses a more precise and controlled sort of throwing.
Perhaps "ParticleAccelerator" ;¬).
Cheers,
Kas.
P.S. joking aside I think SC is great and so are my SC-using friends, I believe we can learn a lot from them.