Re: \set vs \override

[Joe Neeman]

On Sat, 2009-11-21 at 22:45 +0000, Graham Percival wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 11:31:40PM +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
> > I don't see a good rationale why \set, \override, \revert, \tweak should
> > not work on the same set of properties (including subproperties).  I
> > don't see an explanation why it makes sense to differentiate between
> > them.
> > 
> > And I am arrogant enough to believe that if I don't understand a design
> > decision after a few days of trying, it is likely that ultimately a lot
> > of people other than myself will be better off if the distinction gets
> > abolished.
> 
> I can't speak to the programming side of things, but as an
> (ex-)user, documentation editor, and upcoming GLISS manager, I
> would *love* it if we could condense these commands into a single
> one.
> (wrapping the revert into something like
>   \override Slur #'direction = #'revert
> although we'd probably want to choose a different \command to
> avoid confusion with the old syntax.)
> 
> However, I'm not at all certain that this would be an easy (or
> even possible) change.

It would certainly be possible, but I think it would be a bad idea. I
think that having two separate commands is much clearer than having a
command with two distinct behaviours depending on what its argument is.

Cheers,
Joe