Re: Substitute for s1*0

[David Kastrup]

Pavel Roskin <address@hidden> writes:

> Quoting Graham Percival <address@hidden>:
>
>> On Sun, May 06, 2012 at 08:58:11AM +0100, Trevor Daniels wrote:
>>>
>>> David Kastrup wrote Sunday, May 06, 2012 2:57 AM
>>>
>>> >In fact, isn't <> generally prettier than s1*0?  Should we be using it
>>> >in code and documentation rather than s1*0?
>>>
>>> Definitely prettier, but maybe not so transparent as s1*0.
>>
>> +1
>>
>> What about defining a
>>   null
>> or
>>   n
>> "note name"?  Then we could write
>>   c4 n\footnote
>
> My preference is "z".  There are fewer words that start with "z" than
> with "n" and it's easy to remember "z" as shorthand for "zero".
>
> Reusing symbols like "<" and ">" for new meanings would turn Lilypond
> sources into something like Perl.

It is not a reuse.  It already works fine.  q does not behave
consistently when used around it, but that is basically a one-line
change and a problem of q.  \displayLilyMusic does not show it right,
but since it is valid input, that is more the problem of
\displayLilyMusic rather than anything else.  I am just fixing that.

There may be a case for making
<< { c4 d } { <>-. <>-- } >>
produce the same output/stream-events as { c4-. d-- }: that would be a
decent expectation.

However, chords < > do not carry duration information by themselves but
only by virtue of propagating it to their elements, of which there are
none in < >.

I am not fond of the behavior of <>4 (the duration, short of setting the
default duration in the parser, will get ignored) and will readily admit
that.  However, <> is rather idiomatic and thus one will less likely
fancy the idea of writing <>4 than one would writing z4, and the
inconsistency in behavior when writing the former strikes me as less
unsavory than of the latter: < ... > works as a duration override.  You
can write

sample = c2

< \sample >4

and the result will be a quarter note.  That a content-less chord does
not catch durations is somewhat understandable.  For something called z,
this is a bit less obvious.

-- 
David Kastrup