Re: Substitute for s1*0

[David Kastrup]

Graham Percival <address@hidden> writes:

> On Sun, May 06, 2012 at 10:17:05PM +0100, Trevor Daniels wrote:
>> 
>> I've no objection to the docs being changed to use an empty chord
>> but its semantics will need to be introduced somewhere.  The best place
>> is probably the LM, in 2.2.4 Combining notes into chords.
>
> I'm still not happy with an empty chord, especially in the
> Learning Manual.

Uh what?  You prefer s1*0?  Seriously?  That's what we have right now.

> I think it leads to the "perlization" of lilypond, where we end up
> looking like a ridiculous language like Haskell.
>
> I'm ok with using <> as a quick hack for things like convert-ly
> rules, so I'm not arguing against David's patch.

Huh?  <> has been supported since eternities.  My patch merely removes
some minor annoyances in relation to that, annoyances that are quite
unlikely to be triggered anyway.

> But I wouldn't want to see <> becoming part of our basic vocabulary.

It already is.  You can write it as < > if you find it looking dingy.
While I have no clue what triggers your "perlization" or "ridiculous
like Haskell" reflexes, maybe the space in between will help seeing it
as two tokens?  Personally, I rather lean towards writing an idiom
compact, but maybe its its logic is easier recognizable with a space?

> I still think that a "n" or "z" or "\null" would be more clear if
> there's a solid reason to have such a "musical" "event" in a
> non-computer-modified score.

We currently have dozens of occurences of s1*0 for the sake of things
like s1*0-\markup ..., and <>-\markup ... makes a lot more sense.  If you
want to, < >-\markup ... since the style of using it is still open.
If people find < > clearer, it would make sense to use that style also
when printing chords, and in convert-ly rules.

-- 
David Kastrup