Re: Learning Lilypond, comments invited - part 2

[Colin Tennyson]

Kieren MacMillan wrote
> You clearly come from a programming background, which will help you scale
> the Lilypond learning curve in some ways.
> However, don’t push that analogy too far, or you might find (as I did)
> that it can confuse matters.  =)


Hi Kieren,

To use another analogy: our choir conductor sometimes asks in mild
exasparation: "Sing _something_  , never mind you're not sure. If you sing
the wrong note I can correct it, but if you don't sing at all I'm dead in
the water." 

So, in asking questions here on this forum I allow myself to err on the side
of pushing. 

(I'm not a programmer, but as you can tell from the terminology I picked up
I have been reading up on general principles of programming.)


In order to learn the LilyPond environment, I feel I need to know the
concepts that have guided how Lilypond is implemented.

The opportunity for parent-child relationships is obvious.
Systems consist of staffs, staffs are filled with notes.
So, is all the typesetting organized according to parent-child and
sibling-group relationships, or only some things and other things not?


Why do I see side by side two keywords for setting properties: \set and
\override.

I have seen environments where every property that is by nature ON/OFF is
controlled with a boolean variable. That is straightforward, that helps to
make the enviroment learnable.

Why do I see side by side several ways of toggling ON/OFF?
I see "\hide"  "\undo \hide" 
I see "consists" "\remove"
I see "##t" and  "##f"

I wonder, how did the development of LilyPond end up with the syntax and
keyword set that it now has?




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