Re: Issue 984 in lilypond: Noteheads don't merge when one of the voices contains a second

[lilypond]

Comment #10 on issue 984 by address@hidden: Noteheads don't merge when one of  
the voices contains a second
http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=984

Hi Keith,

Mike has expressed his willingness to let me take this issue over and "do  
it my way".  My personal take is to conceptually take both stems and move  
them across each other horizontally, recording all constellations  
that "make sense".

This might even mean merging noteheads on the "secondary" stem.  If you  
take a look at the stem code, you'll notice that the reflection is not  
actually symmetric.  So even while vertical and horizontal positions are  
measured in different units and not considered at the same time, the  
horizontal positions are needed accurately, and the pairing of horizontal  
and vertical position should be maintained.

That is a part of Mike's patch that makes perfect sense to me.  Now the old  
code and Mike's addition are as a combination just too complex for me to  
feel good about them, in particular since the preexisting part makes  
assumptions about how seconds are arranged.  That's not good since it means  
that the stem code is not free to be changed without repercussions on the  
stem merger's assumptions.

So I'll try coming up with something new tomorrow, with the overall goal of  
reducing rather than increasing the amount of code lines, and hopefully  
with fewer exceptions.