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Re: Issue 2149 in lilypond: Patch: Creates non-negative-integer? predica


From: lilypond
Subject: Re: Issue 2149 in lilypond: Patch: Creates non-negative-integer? predicate.
Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 02:53:18 +0000


Comment #22 on issue 2149 by address@hidden: Patch: Creates non-negative-integer? predicate.
http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=2149

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In my experience, negation is a distraction for human mind. As a C programmer, I strive to use "HAVE_FOO" rather than "HAVE_NO_FOO", even when "HAVE_FOO" would be defined almost always. It's more important to spare fellow programmers a few some logical operations in their minds than to minimize the amount of defines for the compiler. It is human minds make things work or break, and they should not be loaded with things computers do better, such as interpreting "#ifndef HAVE_NO_FOO". Therefore, any "non-x" is a non-starter in my opinion.

"unsigned-integer" or "unsigned" would be fine if Lilypond were a development tool, as "un" in "unsigned" is not really normally thought of as a negation, but more as a forced plus sign and and extra bit.

Since Lilypond is not (only) for programmers, "natural-integer" seems a better choice. Even musicians study natural numbers in school. I know that not everybody considers 0 a natural number, but Lilypond can be a bit sloppy here. Mathematicians will excuse us. On the other hand, simply "natural" would be confusing for some musicians, as it's an accidental name.

Therefore I believe that the "natural-integer?" predicate would be the best choice.




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