Re: Two different time signatures with different tuplets in 'em

[David Kastrup]

mclaren <address@hidden> writes:

> David Wright remarked:
>
> "What I can't understand is why you would want 
> to print out a score that is basically impossible to play, and is, in 
> any case, written in a notation that is debatably incapable of 
> expressing it."
>
> This score might be impossible for _humans_ to play. That doesn't mean that
> the score can't be played. It can be entered with trivial ease into a MIDI
> sequencer, and a MIDI sequencer can play it without any trouble at
> all.

Midi generates its timing with rational numbers quite smaller than what
LilyPond balks at.

> To enter this kind of score using a MIDI sequencer, you simply choose
> STEP ENTRY and then figure out the number of ticks of each tuplet. In
> the case of an 11:9 eighth note, for example, if the timebase is 480
> ticks per quarter note, then an 11:9 eighth note is 9/11*(240) =
> 196.3636 ticks. To round things off, add an extra tick every three
> 11:9 eighth notes.  You can enter this entire score in just a few
> minutes using this method with any MIDI sequencer. It's ridiculously
> easy.

It's also not what you wrote in the score.  Reimport the result into any
typesetting program and it will be quite different from what you started
with.

> Given the acid contempt with which I've been treated,

If you recheck the thread, you'll find that several people reacted
slightly irritated to the gratuitous name-calling you started out with.
A majority of people tend to consider themselves smarter than most
others they work with.  This mathematical impossibility can usually be
left mostly unexplored by applying a bit of social grace.

Try focusing on getting your problems solved rather than proving
yourself superior in either your understanding of music or your
understanding of being right in conversation.

> my working assumption as a musician is that Lilypond programmers will
> make zero effort to fix any bug in the Lilypond program, and so far my
> assumption has proven correct.

If you openly assume the worst in people, chances are that you will end
up being mostly right.

The funny thing is that if you openly assume the best in people, chances
are still that you will end up being mostly right.

> Experience shows that programmers are usually distinguished by their
> ignorance and incompetence, and spend far more time denying that any
> bugs exist than actually correcting them.
>
> Experience suggests that LISP stands for "Laughably Incompetent
> So-called Programmer." If you want to add 2 + 2 and get 3, give the
> problem to a LISP programmer. Fifty percent of all large programming
> projects in any language end in failure. Computer "science" is still
> in the dark ages, at the level of alchemy or the phlogiston theory of
> heat. Anyone who expects a programmer to actually help fix any bugs in
> a large program is badly deluded, and as a result, all end users must
> expect to be ridiculed, disdained, sneered at and jeered at by
> programmers whenever they report a bug in a large program.
>
> Thus end users must go it alone and find workarounds for themselves.
> Programmers will never lift a finger to help you when things go wrong.
> Instead, the programmer will typically blame the victim: "Oh, the
> program is supposed to work that way. That's a feature, not a bug."
> Or: "You shouldn't want to do that, no user would ever want to do what
> you're doing."
>
> Musicians must develop a very thick skin and learn to expect this. The
> crucial issue is to get a score, by whatever means possible, and then
> move on. Practicing musicians quickly learn to regard programmers as a
> form of damage and route around them.

And you know what?  The people working on LilyPond and helping each
other on the mailing lists tend to be users, programmers, and musicians
at the same time.  Because that's what makes LilyPond work for them, and
that what makes being part of a community of people, a community working
and improving a common tool and the use of that tool in a spirit of
mutual cooperation and respect, work for them.

There are no "programmers" as a separate species who don't care about
users and music working on LilyPond.  So you stand little enough to gain
for your own work by the kind of name-calling you choose to engage in.
You'll progress better in life by keeping better in check your
expressions of contempt for people you want to help you.  And the
easiest way to keep expressions of contempt in check is by not despising
the people you work with and develop an actual understanding of what
makes them tick.

Good luck.

-- 
David Kastrup