Right-to-Left vs. Trigger object

I use [trigger] this all the time and consider it good practise. If you return to a patch at a later date and edit it, moving objects around in the process, you can easily break some of this r-to-l ordering which could cause problems that are quite hard to find. Using [trigger] means this can never happen just by changing the layout of your patch, keep it up and you could be saving yourself quite a few headaches in the future.

lh

Quote:Just my question, is this practice less performant than depending on the left-to-right?

Do you mean in terms of cpu? I was going to say: no difference, but this patch shows some interesting results. Seems a trigger is more cpu intensive then a square root. Anyhow, definitely consider it good practice.

_
johan

to: thereishopeforus@hotmail.com
thanks for explaining my motivation for extensive [trigger] usage. You steal the words out my mouth

But:
if you use [trigger] (since it is an external object), i am almost sure it's using more CPU-cycles, than it would using r-to-l order, because this is kind of a "max-enginge" instruction, i assume. (Them mem-footprint of the max-enginge running the patch will most definitely be bigger as well, but this should be insignificantly minimal)

@Cycling74: if there is no doc you could point us to, would you mind giving a quick comment?

@Johan, sorry stil on max 4.6. But regarding the [sqrt] vs. [t] i would not be surprised if this really would be the case, i mean i have no idea what the [trigger] internally's doing.

Thanks
HEck

Basically, don't worry about cycles until your patch starts running into performance issues.

Take that advice with some salt: an experienced Max patcher will, indeed, have preferences for certain techniques based on performance. But as a beginner, your first concern should be clean, maintainable solutions to problems. 99% of the time a few cycles here or there are not going to make an overall difference.

[trigger] is considered best practice because it makes your patches resilient against changes in topography. If you rely on r2l triggering and then sometime later make a change to your patch layout, it's all too easy to break the patch. That sucks.

@Johan: I haven't tried your patch, but the result you reports only surprise me a bit. At most. At machine level, Jump and Branch instructions are typically expensive, which translates to if statements (in C & Co.) being expensive. Depending on how trigger is implemented, there might be a lot of ifs in there. Square root is fairly expensive, but as frequently-called library function the implementation is probably highly optimized for performance.

Quote:@Johan: I haven't tried your patch, but the result you reports only surprise me a bit. At most. At machine level, Jump and Branch instructions are typically expensive, which translates to if statements (in C & Co.) being expensive. Depending on how trigger is implemented, there might be a lot of ifs in there. Square root is fairly expensive, but as frequently-called library function the implementation is probably highly optimized for performance.

The [t i i] appears to be even slightly more expensive then a [t f f]. Would that be because of an extra if/then, i.e. int coming after float? But indeed, I'd worry more about proper patching then a bit of performance.

_
johan

Quote:
Do you mean in terms of cpu? I was going to say: no difference, but this patch shows some interesting results. Seems a trigger is more cpu intensive then a square root. Anyhow, definitely consider it good practice.

something coming from metro while max is in overdrive
definetly makes trigger noticeable. but like you said,
it is still good practice.

Sorry guys,

to resemble:

I tell i am always using [t] to control sequence.
i ask:
Just my question, is this practice less performant than depending on the left-to-right?

thereishopeforus@hotmail.com
Thank you.
You explained my motivation to not eat a soup with a fork.

johan,
Thank you for sharing you religious beliefs about performance impacts, yes in terms of CPU. oh god...

Peter Castine wrote:
Take that advice with some salt: an experienced Max patcher will, indeed, have preferences for certain techniques based on performance. But as a beginner, your first concern should be clean, maintainable solutions to problems. 99% of the time a few cycles here or there are not going to make an overall difference.

Thanks Peter, you assume i am a beginner... hmm. ok
In innerloops i do care about every _single_ cycle. yes i do.

then peter explained the "soup and fork problem" again, even though i really never, never ever considered to eat a soup with a fork.

Roman Thilenius:
something coming from metro while max is in overdrive
definetly makes trigger noticeable.

metro+overdrive = trigger noticeable
great statement

Please dont take it too personal, i really expect you to hate me by now, but one thing you have to admit:

Not one qualified and competent statement about the performance diff. between max internal r-to-l versus [t]-based sequencing.

not one.

Half-knowledge is worse than none.
So please, for the future, answer my threads is you have information.

If it stays empty. The information is missing.
after having identified missing information, we go to cycling74 and RFC on the missing part.

This way we can gather valuable information in a structured way.

We're not at philosohy, we are at software engineering.
There are no "mysteriums" or irregularities. There is only true or false. everything else is undefined, and is the worst.

I dont hope the whole board culture is kind of "what is your misterical belief, mine is that... blabla, oh really life is so exciting, it seems to be soo complex but we seem to have figured it out, we so great" like.

That's what you get in microsoft-forums.
This is the MAX-community, dont let the closed source obsess you with the wildest theses.

Let's share facts & knowledge.
Not beliefs.
In the end cycling owes us the missing information. They want us to buy the product which is closed source, and therefore needs to be documented in another way.

We have to be organized and professional.

I apologize for any potential disappointment.
But i hope you are getting my point.

I hope not to catch myself doing the same things i just convicted. And if it would be the case, i hope you will tell me.

Thanks
Heck

Maybe you are not the center of the universe. It is possible that other people might currently be too busy to drop what they are doing and answer a question because you want them to.

Maybe its really not that important.

I've read some very over-dramatic posts about unimportant things on this forum but this probably takes the cake. The fact that cycling 74 staff hasn't personally responded to you ON THE SAME DAY of your post does not mean a call for revolution is necessary.

Get over yourself and use the trigger object.

heck wrote on Mon, 08 June 2009 23:23Sorry guys,

Thanks Peter, you assume i am a beginner... hmm. ok

If it is that offending, may I ask why don't you make a patch, run the test and see by yourself ? You know how to do it, right ?

Julien