Re: Suggestion to make sharps and flats persistent

[David Kastrup]

Carl Sorensen <address@hidden> writes:

>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Kieren MacMillan <address@hidden>
>> To: David Nalesnik <address@hidden>
>> Cc: Lilypond-User Mailing List <address@hidden>
>> Bcc:
>> Date: Tue, 19 May 2020 10:22:15 -0400
>> Subject: Re: Suggestion to make sharps and flats persistent
>> Hi David,
>>
>> > But minor-mode music is often a conglomeration of the "forms" of the
>> > minor scale which makes them of limited separate utility.  Nothing is
>> > in "harmonic minor."  Notating something in minor by J. S. Bach could
>> > be terrifying.
>>
>> Oh, I totally agree with "terrifying" (and, in my opinion, unhelpful).  =)
>> I’m just pointing out that it’s not difficult to figure out how to make
> it work for people who don’t mind living in terror.
>>
>
> But if we support terrifying modes, then we have to deal with all of the
> issues that come fom people having difficulty with terrifying modes.
>
> I'm a firm believer in the simple statement that in LilyPond, you type the
> pitch you hear,

Well, no.  There are enharmonics.  The same pitch you hear has different
spellings for writing.

> and the software is responsible for getting the display correct
> (strictly speaking, this means that I should oppose relative mode,
> although I admit I'm inconsistent here).


> Supporting difficult syntax is harder stil -- it'a an ongoing expense.
>  That's why I'm so appreciative of David K's work to simplify and
> rationalize our syntax so it (almost) always works the way one thinks it
> should.

Anecdote: in January there was the note typesetting conference in
Salzburg and I typed up some example along the lines of

\override NoteHead.color = #red

and then Han-Wen interrupted (or took me aside afterwards or something,
I don't quite remember) and said that I needed to write

\override NoteHead color = #red

instead.  LilyPond actual still does accept that syntax for
compatibility reasons.  But since things like NoteHead.color have now
gained the Scheme representation of #'(NoteHead color) and a whole
number of user-level functions make use of that, it completely threw me
for a loop to get the suggestion of writing something that no longer
fits the way I have come to think about NoteHead.color : not as some
arbitrary syntax but something conveying a meaning also represented in
Scheme.

I wonder for how many other old users of LilyPond these changes in
meaning that have become the natural view for me (and hopefully new
users) just did not happen since a whole lot of the old syntax of
LilyPond continues to work well enough without viewing it in terms of
structuring concepts that came after the fact.

-- 
David Kastrup