Re: [proposal] easy triplets and tuplets - Draft 3

[David Kastrup]

Martin Tarenskeen <address@hidden> writes:

> On Mon, 8 Oct 2012, Trevor Daniels wrote:
>
>>
>> David Kastrup wrote Monday, October 08, 2012 10:45 PM
>>
>>
>>> Thomas Morley <address@hidden> writes:
>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>> So, i believe that LilyPond shouldn't always follow her users'
>>>>> intuition, even if they are professional musicians.  In this case, i
>>>>> think that \tuplet 2/3 is better than \tuplet 3/2 (for 3 notes in time
>>>>> of 2), because it corresponds to mathematical ratio, and is similar to
>>>>> scaling durations.
>>>>
>>>> +1
>>>
>>> -1 from me for this one.  We have \times for that already and I can't
>>> count the times it took me to get the fraction right.  And with the name
>>> "\times" there is at least the mnemonic of the name itself.
>
> I am not in favour of allowing different commands \times 2/3 and
> \tuplet 3/2 to do the same job.

Why?  Nobody forces you to use a command you don't like.

> My voice would go to: just keep \times x/y the way it is.

The proposal was not about changing \times.

> I can't see what makes 3/2 easier than 2/3.

3 triplets on the time of 2 normal notes.  That concept is common enough
that one writes 3 (or even 3:2) in order to mark tuplets, not 2/3.  What
is 2/3 supposed to mean?  "Each note will take up 2/3 of its nominal
time, making the total phrase's total time, linearly distributed, a
ratio of 2/3 of its nominal time" -- that's a mathematician's
definition, and it is defective anyhow since it fails to explain the
difference between \times 2/3 and \times 4/6.

\tuplet 6/4 means getting 6 tuplets where 4 notes would be normally.
Now give me a definition of \times 4/6 that is sufficient to
differentiate it meaningfully from \times 2/3

> And having the choice of two commands doing the same job with a
> slightly different syntax only makes things more confusing for me.

Then take the choice once and ignore the existence of the other command
for the rest of your life.

-- 
David Kastrup