There is a very interesting help topic called 03.connection.pd in the puredata doc. I can't understand why the numbers add up the wrong way. Let me pick up a concrete situation for better understanding:

the input number box is set to '33', wires are crossed in the '+' object (rig the left inlet first, right inlet last). if I scroll up the value to '34', then accroding to that tutorial, and as proved by experience, the right inlet of the '+' object does not receive the value '34', only the left inlet does, so the outlet of '+' returns 34+33=67. But if wires are 'uncrossed' (rig right inlet first, left inlet last), then what ? ok I suppose the right inlet (so called 'cold' inlet) receives data first, but then why does the left inlet receive data too ? It's a miracle in that case, the outlet returns 34+34=68.

If the author of 03.connection.pd is around I would be extremely grateful if he could explain me this curiosity in detail ... I'm beginning in puredata, I need to use it for my phD, and if that kind of misbehaviour happens for a simple addition then it's gonna happen for more complicated things. I can deal with a technical explanation, in fact I would love one, please.

cheers
legus

thanks for your reply, it was helpful. I've been going through tutorials for several hours now, pd is certainly a weird language when you're used to standard object-based or type-based languages like matlab or python or c. The soundfiler object for instance is completely unnatural to me. in standard coding there would be an object called "fileread" and one would enter the filename as an argument. in pd you need both a message and a soundfiler object. I guess it was thought out for convenience because in pd you can change arguments with number boxes and messages and so on ... but still it feels weird ...