Re: Issue difficulty tags (was: Manipulating instrument names and staff group names)

[Carl Sorensen]

On 11/7/21, 12:46 PM, "lilypond-devel on behalf of Kieren MacMillan" 
<lilypond-devel-bounces+carl.d.sorensen+digest=gmail.com@gnu.org on behalf of 
kieren_macmillan@sympatico.ca> wrote:
    
    Obvious “low-hanging fruit” [at least from the perspective of motivation]: 
I want — nay, need! — the part combiner to Do The Right Thing™: effectively 
unlimited voice inputs, no problem with quotes and lyrics, etc. etc. etc.
    
    > and any sort of mentor can tell you
    > if it sounds feasible for a beginner.
    
As far as I can see, this is desirable, but certainly not low-hanging fruit.  
In fact, I think that defining the Right Thing is an extremely difficult task, 
let alone implementing it.

If you have two voices to combine, there are three possible choices:  Voice 1, 
Voice 2, or combined.

If you go to three voices, you now have 7 choices: Voice 1, Voice 2, Voice 3, 
Voice 1+2, Voice 2+3, Voice 1+3, Voice 1+2+3.

If you go three voices, you have 14 choices: Voices 1, 2, 3, 4, 1+2, 1+3, 1+4 
2+3, 2+4, 3+4, 1+2+3, 1+3+4, 2+3+4, 1+2+3+4.  And then you have combinations of 
these: 1, 2, 3+4; 1, 2+3, 4; etc.

I think this sounds like an easy problem, but once I looked into it, I decided 
there was nothing easy about it.

If you could come up with a an algorithm that would allow me to Do The Right 
Thing given unlimited voice inputs, then I imagine it's implementable.  But I 
think coming up with the algorithm is very challenging.

Thanks,

Carl