Re: Substitute for s1*0

[Graham Percival]

On Mon, May 07, 2012 at 11:00:39AM +0200, David Kastrup wrote:
> James <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > Evidence? 'skip' is exactly what it says on the tin.
> 
> But we are not talking about \skip (which actually would have the
> advantage of _not_ tampering with the current duration in the parser,
> and the disadvantage that it does not take post-events and thus is
> totally pointless for this task) but s.  s says nothing on the tin, you
> need to look it up in the manual on its own.

wait, \skip and s aren't the same thing??

Leaving that question aside, we're talking about the preferred
method of having something which does not tamper with the current
duration but does take post-events.

A number of people think that <> is the ideal tool for a
non-duration post-event.  James and I disagree; we think that a
different tool (such as a new \null or \nullevent) would be easier
to read.


> > I absolutely take Graham's point that having a not uncommon sytax
> > expression like '<< a4.(\->\<[^<>\markup {hello} \\ ...'  is ugly
> 
> Reality check.  <> is not new.  And it is not what makes the above look
> bad.

Seriously?  wow, we have radically different standards of
readability.


> Uh, <> (or < >) is precisely that: a chord.  Which is the reason that it
> works.  Are you arguing that we should abolish chord syntax?

No, we're not suggesting that we abolish chord syntax.  But we
*are* suggesting that a different method of indicating a
non-duration post-event would be preferrable, and if we have such
a method, we shouldn't encourage the use of <> for that task.


> > Why would we suddenly become familiar with <> over s1*0?
> 
> Because we already _are_.  We are not talking about a proposed change in
> functionality.  We are talking about a proposed change in documentation.
> I gave an example where s1*0 causes _totally_ unexpected results.

Please stop the straw-men.  Nobody thinks that s1*0 is the best
method of indicating a non-duration post-event.

> Are you
> really holding a grudge because of the one-time comment from Janek

Please stop the ad-hominen attacks.  James and I are not holding
any grudges.

> > Also isn't this a really a GLISS topic?
> 
> Reality check.  <> has already worked for eternities.  It would be GLISS
> to _disallow_ it.  I can see no reason for that.

We're not proposing that we _disallow_ it.  We're proposing that
there might be a better way, and if we can agree on a better way,
it would be good not to encourage the <> method.

> Should we also disallow using { } and << >> instead of \sequential and
> \simultaneous (which have been available since LilyPond 1.1 but do not
> see much use)?

Now you're just being ridiculous.

- Graham