Re: Adding durations (for \after)

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Jean (et al.),

> Personally, I find it striking that the *only* two LilyPond
> libraries I am hearing about regularly on mailing lists,
> edition-engraver and arranger.ly, are both about
> inserting / replacing music in a score at a certain
> point in time, although with different purposes
> (tweaking vs. arranging) and with different authors,
> implementations and users.

Also, to a great extent, \after, which has consumed a larger-than-usual amount 
of mailing list electrons of late…  ;)

> To me, that means it would be good to integrate generic tools
> inspired by them into LilyPond proper.

Yes. The main reason I don't compose “into Lilypond” is the irritation with 
implementing formal changes, which really comes down to the sequential nature 
of the note code — the ability to “natively” [and, dare we hope, really 
easily/simply?] insert/replace musical elements at “arbitrary” moments would be 
a game-changer.

> Admittedly, this syntax has more potential benefit in
> the future for these external tools or tools in LilyPond
> inspired from them than it has benefit for current
> standard use of LilyPond.

I disagree: check the archives for all the talk about skips and global 
variables and the like, and you'll see that this is a fundamental pain point 
for just about every user who moves beyond the very simplest of scores.

Cheers,
Kieren.