Re: constructive criticism

[Ferenc Wagner]

Mats Bengtsson <address@hidden> writes:

> I also sketched a slightly more elaborate instruction in
> an email some months ago, thinking that it might a good
> addition to the manual but haven't yet received any
> response on if it is useful or not.

Hey Mats, that *really* was a wonderful piece of otherwise
undocumented stuff.  I didn't think we should have voted it
in, it seemed obvious.  I kept goint back to it during
everyday work.  Actually, I thought that it was incorporated
during the recent restructuring of the manual.  Reading it
again, I notice the following (cf. subject):

The \translator syntax is not intuitive for me.  Why not

\translator \ScoreContext {
    objectname \set #'propname = #value
}

instead?  Does it make sense to include more contexts in a
translator?  Btw, why \translator?  Why not \property?  Why
\set (typo?)?  If \translator { \StaffContext } is a no-op,
why \translator { \RemoveEmptyStaffContext } isn't?  There
must be more to is, given for example

\translator {
         \type "Performer_group_performer"
         \name Staff
         \accepts Voice
}

It's necessary to hide irrelevant details of the inner
workings, but in this case it makes hard to build a mental
model of the process as the picture lacks coherence.  From
your old article:

> Above, we described how to set object properties. The
> syntax for setting context properties is very similar:
> \property contextname.propname = #value

Yes, it is similar, but at the same time subtly different
without apparent reason: no \set, \override of whatever.
Again, why?  In general, why do we need \property at all?
The equal sign is not used for anything else.  Together with
the scoping idea we could get rid of \property, \override,
\revert, \set and \once in one move!

Ok, some of the above may be against the syntax of Lily, some
against the documentation and Mats' mail and probably a good
some against myself, as you will soon undoubtedly point out. :)

Feri.