Anyone know anything about Pd (Pure Data)?

pd is FUN!!!!
 
Seriously, it puts a lot of the fun back into programming, and it is a very powerful tool for music production.
 
The only negative I can think of is that it can become a real black hole of time.

hmmm...
 
at present I have three "sandboxes", and while one would expect a sandbox to be the same as any other sandbox, well, not what I've found.
 
So I do use Reaktor a lot to create all sorts of goodies... but truth be told, thus far maybe 1 in 10 is a keeper, and that's optimistic. I'm not ditching it, but neither am I focusing on it, and maybe that's my problem? Rapt attention has never been used to describe me<G>.
 
I also use pd - in many ways I would argue that this is the most fun one can have in front of a computer screen. My biggest problem is that I very often end up with something that has nothing to do with what I set out to accomplish. Frustrating some times, serendipitous some times... but I haven't ditched this yet either.
 
And I'm still a fan of Infinity from Soundquest, except for the part where it is getting a bit long in the tooth, probably because it did not fly off the shelves. Pity too, because in many ways it was a pioneer, and it remains quite cool, but I'm nervous that at some point it will simply stop working with the current OS.
 
Another really cool, and great sounding tool is (was?) Quantum from dbAudioware. In fact I'd say Quantum could give Max a run for it's money. I never did have the funds (or the justification maybe?) to purchase a license, but I spent many an hour with the demo, and it was great.
 
The new kid on the block is Bidule - from Plogue. I've tried the demo a couple times now, and the most recent pass was really quite remarkable. I just wish I had a better idea of what they are going to do about pricing... I don't want to invest in something that I won't be able to afford when it is finally released<G>!
 
And of course there is MAX... nuff said<G>!
 
I think Reaktor and pd make a very interesting, and powerful pair of tools that compliment each other in many ways. So while it isn't "cheap" in terms of time, I'd heartily recommend it!
 

Sharke, your query has piqued my curiosity, as has Bill's enthusiastic reply. I've never known what pd was actually good for, aside from perhaps being a fun pastime for geeks.
 
As I've gotten older, I've definitely left much of my geek-ness in the past. I no longer take things apart just to have a look inside, no longer compulsively collect and study schematics to figure out how stuff works, and lack the patience to spend all weekend making LEDs blink. I only write code because it's my day job, not for fun as I once did. The soldering iron only gets warmed up when a cable breaks, and even then I'll often just go buy a new one.
 
But despite the onset of lazy geezerdom, I often feel like something's missing. I still remember when geeking out was fun, and I'm always on the lookout for something to rekindle that drive. 
 
I understand that there is a VST wrapper for pd that allows you to run pd patches within a VST host. Is that right? If so, it might be just the motivation to explore pd further.
 
 

i use pure data a lot to do things like convert video capture into midi then feed it into sonar.  one of the algorithmic compositions i'm working on right now is feeding moon position, tide information and temperature data etc into a mathematical abstraction layer which then drives different synthesizers and midi cc's and sends the midi through loopmidi on the host machine with sonar or rtpmidi over a network to garageband or cubase or reason... 
it's good fun.  some of the math modules are a bit hectic to learn (spigot comes to mind) but good fun.

I dunno about practical but it happens when you listen to too much fiorella terenzi.