Re: Would you donate for structured Lilypond variables?

[David Kastrup]

Marc Hohl <address@hidden> writes:

> Am 06.12.2011 12:33, schrieb David Kastrup:
>>
>> $(module-ref (current-module) (string->symbol (format #f "text~a" letter)))
>>
>> to call a symbol by name (ugh, by the way).
>>
>> Going through the symbol name is what TeX freaks will do at the drop of
>> a head ("Off with his \csname!").  I'd prefer a somewhat more structured
>> approach.  But it would be work.
> Hey, \csname within lilypond - *that* would be great! ;-)
>> Check out<URL:http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=2072>.
>> If enough people consider this worthwhile to contribute an appropriate
>> donation towards its implementation, I'll be doing the infrastructure
>> and docs for vectors in a manner that makes this extensible to other
>> tasks.
> Hmmm - the vector approach looks promising, but the syntax is
> not very convincing for me - but I understand that
> \violin[1] or \violin(1) won't work out of the box either.

Well, since assignments can be used in places only where strings are not
otherwise allowed IIRC, something like

violin1 = " .... "

could likely be made to work.  It does not make sense to implement a
syntax not parsable by music functions.  That would be as useless as
having a vector-ref in Scheme that has no list syntax.

You really need to make use of the available power instead of
sidestepping it.  There is enough syntax around without inventing more
distractions.

-- 
David Kastrup