Re: mdash in markup?

[David Kastrup]

James Harkins < address@hidden> writes:

> David Kastrup <dak <at> gnu.org> writes:
>
>> > I see it now. It wasn't obvious to me that the special character
>> > aliases wouldn't work without enabling them in the paper block.
>> 
>>     A list of ASCII aliases for special characters can be included:
>> 
>>         \paper {
>>           #(include-special-characters)
>>         }
>> [...]
>> 
>> It does not get much more obvious than that.
>
> It can.
>
> This bugs me because a/ I tend to read text and skim examples

You stop reading text in mid-sentence because it contains code?

> and (more importantly) b/ it's imprecise. Here, I was left to guess
> about the criticality of include-special- characters, and I guessed
> wrong.

Didn't you admit not even reading that sentence?  It does not state "A
list of ASCII aliases _is_ included" but rather "it _can_ be included".

> My point is, why should I have had to guess in the first place?

More like "why should you have to read in the first place".

> Lilypond's documentation is generally better than that. But here is a
> case where a feature is entirely inactive without a statement,

"A list of ASCII aliases for special characters can be included:"

And the feature _has_ to be inactive without a statement since it messes
with string interpretation.  Personally, I don't particularly like this
sort of global interface causing potential trouble in unrelated areas
that work on their own.

But there is no question that with the given interface, this feature
_must_ default to being off.

-- 
David Kastrup