Re: names of vertical spacing dimensions

[Mark Polesky]

David Kastrup wrote:
> In short, we are going down a road now where any
> user-visible improvement (for which the necessity is
> clear) will become increasingly painful to do for both
> developers and users.
>
> Since obviously I am alone with this opinion among the
> developers, I would suggest polling the users on the
> Lilypond user list whether they think this change a step
> in the right direction and desirable for 2.14.
>
> After all, they will be affected most.

I just want to state (for the record), that I think the
points David has raised are important ones.  I didn't want
to start a war here (and I don't think I did), but I wanted
to expose and confront what I saw as a problem.  And now,
thanks to David's eloquence, I think we all see the problem.

I think this is a good time to rethink how LilyPond uses the
\markup command.  Perhaps the code is too casual in this
respect?  It would be nice instead to have a more semantic
command vocabulary to replace top-level markups, for
example:

\alternateVerse
\footnote
\dialogue
\stageDirections

...or whatever.  Then, \markup could be used really as an
un-semantic backup command for cases when nothing else fits.
Personally, I think \footnote would be a good place to
start.

On the topic of this actual thread, I have a patch all ready
to go -- http://codereview.appspot.com/2505041/ -- but I'm
in no real rush, and I'm happy to wait for everyone to
converge on a realistic proposal for a long-term solution,
even if it's totally different.  So let me know what you
guys think I should do with my patch.

Thanks.
- Mark