Mark Knoop wrote:
> This talk of 'reconsidering your notation' and 'reasonable shortest
> notes' is rather disturbing. Clearly, composers *do* use 128th (and
> shorter) notes, both beamed and unbeamed: therefore lilypond *should*
> support them.
>
> The musical notation should be chosen by the composer, not the tool. It
> is not the job of software writers to dictate what is or is not
> 'reasonable'.
When applied to notation, sure. When applied to software, it *is* the
job of project managers to dictate what is or is not `reasonable'.
Since we want the issue tracker to be complete, I have added this item
as a feature request:
http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=508
However, it has the lowest possible priority. Adding font symbols is a
very hard task, and there's little demand for it. If somebody wants to
add this feature, fine -- but I really don't think this issue is as
important as the other 163 unsolved issues.
I hate parroting "we don't have the resources..." all the time, but it's
true. And I think that transparency and honesty is better than the
alternative.
Please, please just don't get rid of the *beamed* 128ths and 256ths; I use them both all the time. (I have actually one time needed a flagged 128th in Lily and had to work around the situation, but that's fine. What's crucial are the beams.)
As far as the question "do composers actually use 128ths?", they do; there are couple of examples in the Beethoven piano sonatas, for example, though, IIRC, they're all beamed.
As fas as the question "what should our docs say?", I don't have an opinion; but I believe the Finale docs said 128ths for years (and I think they recently added 256ths).