Re: Proposed context property renaming

[Trevor Bača]

On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 4:07 PM David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:

> Trevor Bača <trevorbaca@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 1:02 PM David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Trevor Bača <trevorbaca@gmail.com> writes:
> >>
> >> > I am concerned by what seems to be an unwillingness to use the term
> >> > "duration" to label things in the system that are clearly durations.
> >>
> >> Computers are not fond of ambiguities.  I am concerned by what seems to
> >> be an unwillingness to use consistent terminology while expecting
> >> consistent results.
> >>
> >
> > Hi David, is what's at stake here a desire to use the word "duration" to
> > mean just the LilyPond-specific construct that looks like ...
> >
> >   4..
> >   16
> >   16.
> >   32..
> >
> > ... and so on?
> >
> > Is that what's going on here?
>
> "Is that what is going on here" sounds like you imagine yourself to have
> uncovered a conspiracy attempting to make LilyPond harder to use.
>
> There is nothing to be gained from trying to use the same name for
> different data types just because humans are good at disentangling
> ambiguities from context.
>
> There actually is a comparatively well-known (among programmers and
> computer scientists) aphorism by Alan Perlis about this:
>
>     When someone says, "I want a programming language in which I need
>     only say what I want done," give him a lollipop.
>
> Terminology in LilyPond may be drawn from common vocabulary (we would
> not consider calling a duration a "ruminant"), but in the context of
> LilyPond's data types, a term that happens to have eight or more
> dictionary meanings in the English language will have exactly one
> well-defined meaning in LilyPond.
>

David, may I please have a direct answer to my question?

Is your motivation that you want to strictly limit the word "duration" to
mean only LilyPond's (highly idiosyncratic) "dotted integer" notation?

-- 
Trevor Bača
www.trevorbaca.com
soundcloud.com/trevorbaca