Re: Subject: Re: [abcusers] About the choice of '!'
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], John Chambers [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes My feeling is that the active developers shouldn't be held back by a popular but obsolete program that isn't being maintained. This is a slippery slope, as the media calls it, and will just invite more such problems in the future. The practical approach is to add the !...! notation to the standard, accept that there are old programs that aren't compatible with this and other minor points, and note that there's a simple workaround in this case. Hear, hear. As for the use of * as a forced line break, I'm not committed to it. As far as I can see the formatting of lines is really quite extra to the function of abc and really the responsibility of a good implementation program. But if it has to be I could easily go with * or @ or even a compound symbol. But the principle of havining one unsupported obsolete program dictate the new standard is not a good one. Bernard Hill Braeburn Software Author of Music Publisher system Music Software written by musicians for musicians http://www.braeburn.co.uk Selkirk, Scotland To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Subject: Re: [abcusers] About the choice of '!'
I said it could be adviced to use it with care. If someone is using this kind of notation ...|!dead!trill!beef|... then one has made a mistake because it could be misunderstood. It's also the reason why I think in the 2.0 standard * should be used for forced line break instead. And why a mistake ? because if one would have written ...|! dead !trill!beef |... then some parsers may have avoid the error. And if one had thought to another way of putting this trill, either with U: or ~ or with a new line ...| dead !trill!beef|... etc. It's like the question of using a %%version 2.0 in tunes, the general answer is ppl will never enter this number if they don't feel the use to it, it's the same with all other information, some pple will never enter X: fields, some may input unreadable abc... well if people are not parcimonious, it's their problem... Including the version used would be a good idea for those who would need it. Now that ! staffbreak is available in abcm2ps, it's a reasonable /.../ !decorations!. In which case the 2 different ! constructions will be mixed together in the same line wherever they have to be. I thought with the new standard the ! as line break was supposed to be still supported for backward compatibility, and only tolerated, with advice to avoid to use both, or to use with care. ___ Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en français ! Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: Subject: Re: [abcusers] About the choice of '!'
Wow! Go away for two hours and I'm 20 emails behind and the subject I was thinking about has changed. (Probably a good thing, keeps me from sending some better-not-sent posts.) Are all of you folks sitting anxiously by your computers with your email opened??? But could I ask people to be sparing with the material quoted? That usually isn't a problem, but with the present volume, it takes quite a bit of time to go thru quoted and re-quoted material, and anything which would pare down that task would be appreciated. Apologies for taking your time on this. On the subject of bangs and stars for linebreaks and decorations...I haven't been following it closely, and now I admit to being a bit puzzled as to the status of what's being decided. It seems to me that using ! for both a hard linebreak and for ! ... ! in the same tune is asking for trouble. Using spaces to help distinguish them (did I see that suggested?) will lead to really frustrated users who can't understand why abc refuses to behave as they expect---and who, after they find out that it's just a missing or extra [EMAIL PROTECTED] space (dialect of cartoon language there, not abc) will re-invent Phil's unix post on the spot. The other thing that makes this question a bit hard to decide is that the linbreak usage is pretty much limited to abc2win, while the other usage is so recent that not too many people even know about it yet. I personally like ! ... ! as is, because my intuition is that the ! ... ! usage will be considerably more important in the long run, but of course, that remains to be seen. What about deciding what we actually want---whatever will make the best abc---as opposed to what we think we are forced to accept? There could be an abc2win compatibility mode---where ! is always a hard linebreak---and some well-placed warnings to the effect that There is an ambiguous use of !. You may want to try abc2win compatibility mode. And maybe, just maybe, if someone convinces Chris to downplay abc2win on his site, the problem will get less acute with time. (Or Jum Vint will update abc2win. But that is really too much to ask. I am reminded of a sig I saw somewhere: Programming is like sex: make one mistake and you end up supporting it for life.) Cheers, John Walsh To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: Subject: Re: [abcusers] About the choice of '!'
John Walsh writes: | On the subject of bangs and stars for linebreaks and | decorations...I haven't been following it closely, and now I admit to | being a bit puzzled as to the status of what's being decided. It | seems to me that using ! for both a hard linebreak and for ! ... ! in the | same tune is asking for trouble. Using spaces to help distinguish them | (did I see that suggested?) will lead to really frustrated users who can't | understand why abc refuses to behave as they expect What seems to have happened is that I and a few others pointed out that we don't really have a serious problem with the two uses of ! right now, because a simple heuristic can tell which meaning was used in a tune. But some people misinterpreted this to mean that both could be legal in the standard language. But using both in a single tune is a parsing disaster. This sort of situation arises in software standardization efforts all the time. Vendors X, Y and Z implement the standard, with their own favorite extensions. Each extension is fine on its own, and it's not difficult for software to distinguish them (especially if there's some sort of id to test). But they can't all be implemented in the same software for some reason. In such cases, it's normal for X, Y and Z (and their customers) to dig in their heels and insist that the standard follow their lead. The standard committee (or voting population) eventually has to just shrug and make a decision. That decision might be to not add any of the extensions to the standard. More often, a scheme is worked out that forces one or more of the vendors to revise their software if they want to be able to claim standard compliant. In our case, one use of ! was implemented, but nobody except the users of one tool was aware of it. Even after I noticed the funny ! char in some tunes, it took me a couple of years to discover what it meant, since the tunes made sense if I just ignored it. Then another (very public) discussion of annotaions started, and the suggestion came up to use ! as a quote char, because it wasn't being used in abc yet. As far as most of us knew, it was unused, and was available. So several other important abc tools started recognizing the !...! construct, and it became a de-facto extension to the language. We could change all those programs to use a different delimiter, and edit all the abc that uses !...! to use the new delimiter. Or we can ignore the conflict, and make !...! the standard. This wouldn't actually be all that bad an idea, because the simple heuristic still works. The one thing that really won't work is permitting both in one tune. It's likely that abc2win won't be changed to match any new standard, as it wasn't changed to match the 1.6 standard. But this doesn't make that much difference, as we'll just need some bits of code to spot the abc2win ! and ignore it. And if Jim decides to update abc2win, or passes the code to someone else, we can strongly suggest that it be updated to the standard. My feeling is that the active developers shouldn't be held back by a popular but obsolete program that isn't being maintained. This is a slippery slope, as the media calls it, and will just invite more such problems in the future. The practical approach is to add the !...! notation to the standard, accept that there are old programs that aren't compatible with this and other minor points, and note that there's a simple workaround in this case. For that matter, we have lots of other standard features of abc that aren't implemented by some programs. And cases like continuation that are done differently by different programs. It's not that big a deal. We can just decide what the standard should be, and use social pressure to try to get programs up to date. Or not. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
