Re: MAX/msp question

[Jeffrey Larson <jeff@zonemobius.com>]

On Oct 31, 2006, at 4:02 PM, cpr@musetrap.com wrote:
 > but, building a max external to do the looping, with all the  
appropriate
 > 'inlets/outlets' exposed, would do the trick for many people..

Right. But the original question (I assumed) was whether you could
do this without resorting to external coding, because once you do
you're in a whole different league as far as the technical skills
required.

Once you're writing in C++, then the question is why even bother
writing a Max external, just write a VST plugin and expose the
necessary ports and parameters.  Then it can be used in Live
or Bidule, or anywhere else.

I like Max, but it serves an odd market.  People that would not
be considered programmers can use it to build many wonderful things,
but people that are programmers don't really need it.  Like other
"high level" languages, it makes easy things very easy, it makes
medium things easy, and it makes hard things even harder :-)

I think it would be exciting to take a system like Mobius or AmibiLoop
and try to break the architecture down into smaller components that
could each be built as a Max external, then use Max to wire them up in
different ways.  Who knows, maybe there will be someone with more free
time than I do that wants to tackle that :-)

But this is hard work, and anyone capable of doing that has to
be committed to the Max Way Of Life, in addition to never expecting
to get any money for it.

Jeff