Confusion about beaming

[Marc Schonbrun]

Hello,

I was wondering about why the decision was made in the input syntax parser to 
view beaming groups as follows:

}

\relative {
  c8 d [e f g a b c]
}

The above snippet beams from the d through to the final c. At first glance, it 
would appear that the brackets are encasing the e through c, and those notes 
would end up beamed together, but, alas, this is not the case. 

This is one of those things that I can happily learn, but it takes a pause to 
get it right. Can someone comment on the history of this? I am simply curious.

Thanks,
Marc