Re: Allow digits in identifiers (issue 6493072)

[Marc Hohl]

Am 29.10.2012 14:29, schrieb David Kastrup:
> Marc Hohl <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > Am 29.10.2012 11:05, schrieb address@hidden:
> > > [...]
> > >
> > > I can wave around my long-term plans which would allow for just writing
> > > \violin1 by allowing arrays of violins (I have something in a branch
> > > right now, but without further syntax changes I am working on it is not
> > > really fitting seamlessly into LilyPond). But long-term plans are not
> > > really a suitable excuse for blocking other developers indefinitely.
> > I think it would help everyone quite a lot if you could post your
> > future plans/roadmap – just some concise bullet points telling us what you
> > want to do.
> >
> > I trust you (almost) completely in terms of developing lilypond along
> > a way that is most fruitful for internal consistency and further external
> > enhancements. It is sometimes just hard to see your goals by just
> > trying to review your patches and remarks along that way.
> Much stuff is in a Schrödinger's cat state: a superposition of
> possibilities not necessarily compatible with one another.  The
> long-term plans are only really getting more detailed as I work on them.
> And of course, they change while I work on them.
Ok, sounds familiar ;-)
>   [...]
> > And if other developers just knew what you are about to do, they do
> > not cross your way (in terms of work!) unintentionally.
> It would be absurd to propose that developers have to refrain from any
> development that I find unsettling.  Even if we wanted to state such an
> interdictum based on some popish infallibility theorem, by exactly the
> same theorem the other developers would not have the _means_ to figure
> out in advance what would be unsettling me.
I didn't mean to "forbid" developers to work on this or that issue –
on the other hand, if I knew that one of your next goals is xy, I'd
rather contact you how to help you on this issue or just wait until
you have finished this instead of trying to roll my own patch
(this is – in my case – rather hypothetical).
> And it's not like Keith's proposal about violin.1 is fundamentally
> flawed or bad.  It is really clever.  It just does not fit well with the
> concepts and constructs it tries to harmonize with on a surface level.
I see.
> In the "Earthsea Trilogy" of Ursula K. le Guin, there is one master on
> Roke, the island of wizards, who is known as the Master Patterner.  As
> opposed to the others of the nine masters, nobody really knows what art
> he practices or teaches.
>
> In the second volume, "The Tombs of Atuan", there is just a slight hint
> from an archmage mending a magic artifact:
>
>      "It will [hold]. I couldn't put a mere mending charm on the Ring of
>      Erreth-Akbe, like a village witch mending a kettle. I had to use a
>      Patterning, and make it whole. It is whole now as if it had never
>      been broken."
>
> In a manner, I feel like I am growing into the position of a "Master
> Patterner" in LilyPond's syntax, making its design whole as if it had
> never been broken, tying fragmented features into a coherent whole.  So
> there is a lot of gut feeling involved here, and not all necessarily
> scientifically quantifiable.
I don't know the story yet, but the description seems to fit quite
well ;-)
> I have written something up in a reply to Han-Wen at some point of
> time.  Let me take a look:
>
> Thinks I have on my personal agenda:
>
> [...]
>
> At any rate, there is a lot to do that makes a lot of sense in terms of
> turning LilyPond into a collection of modular subsystems where one can
> evade the consequences of badly implemented subsystems simply by not
> using them.
Quite a lot of stuff on your TODO list ...
> Ok, that was what I wrote to Han-Wen some months ago.  Obviously, there
> is still the very real possibility that I just have to drop out of
> LilyPond for financial reasons.  Donations, while impressive regarding
> the engagement and endurance of the individuals involved, are basically
> stagnating at a level quite below what counts here as "poverty
> endangered", I just manage to match expenses with that (which is
> impressive), with nothing left for pension funds or personal hardships,
> and that's before taxes.
Sad to hear that. My own financial situation is – well, quite o.k. for
me, my wife and three kids, but nothing more, and to be honest,
I cannot afford to pay you for doing your job here for lilypond,
despite the fact that I would gladly spend money to this kind of
work, if there were some bucks left.

I don't know whether there is a possibility to get more money for
lilypond. A lot of discussions were raised on this list, but no real
solutions were found.
I once was a member of Dante e.V., the german TeX user's group.
They could afford to hire a programmer to recode TeX in Java, IIRC.
I don't know if that were possible for lilypond (no, not recoding it
in Java ;-) to build up something like a user group with all the
financial consequences ... but I am not a "Vereinsmeier" (sorry,
dict.cc refuses to translate that), so I am probably the wrong person
for incorporating such a group.
>    So it is quite likely that at some point of
> time, I have to cut my losses and leave for a more conventional job, and
> of course I don't want to leave matters in a state nobody else could
> hope to work with.
 I understand.
> So the degree with which I can sensibly put out long-term directions and
> goals is really limited, as I can't vouch to actually bring them to
> fruition.
So probably my proposal to give us a roadmap was
obviously not very elaborate – thanks for sharing your ideas
and plans in such an instructive manner!

Regards,

Marc