Re: What is the problem with "\relative"? (Was: Do we really offer the future?)

[H. S. Teoh]

On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 03:35:59PM +0200, Federico Bruni wrote:
> Hi Kieren
> 
> 2015-04-23 14:40 GMT+02:00 Kieren MacMillan <address@hidden>:
> 
> > > personally I find lilypond code in \relative mode easier to read.
> >
> > Really? I look at
> >
> >     \relative c,, { c4 g' a b e f' g' a, b,, c’ }
> >
> > and I can’t immediately tell which octave the last c is in. Looking
> > at
> >
> >     c,,4 g,, a,, b,, e, f g' a b,, c
> >
> > it’s perfectly clear right away.
> 
> 
> I see the first as less cluttered than the second (and another example
> of music can appear much more cluttered than above example).
> 
> I don't like trying to "see" the music in the lilypond input. I prefer
> using point-and-click.
> Maybe, you, as a composer, want to see the input in a different way
> from me.
[...]

I work directly with lilypond input with a text editor, and I originally
started out with absolute mode. But I quickly found it incredibly
tedious to type, because of all those repeated apostrophes and commas.

It makes me think that it was a wrong design decision in lilypond to use
' and , for octave indications and digits 1, 2, 4, 8, ... for durations.
If we had used digits for octave designations instead, absolute mode
would be much less painful to write, e.g.:

        c5 d5 e5 f5 g5 f5 e5 d5 c5

instead of:

        c''' d''' e''' f''' g''' f''' e''' d''' c'''

Besides, only powers of 2 are valid for durations, which wastes all the
other numbers in between. Unfortunately I don't have a good idea on how
to write durations without using digits either.

But as far as relative mode is concerned, I agree that it has its warts
(especially when temporary split voices have their current relative
octaves taken from the last note in the input file as opposed to the
last common voice, which is extremely annoying). However, it works
wonders when writing orchestral parts where you need to double at the
octave -- just a cut and paste with an adjustment / octave check at the
beginning and you're all set, whereas in absolute mode you have to
painstakingly edit every single note to change the octave after pasting.

In any case, regular octave checks are invaluable as a stop-gap measure
for the flaws of relative mode.

But overall, at least for me, I find the advantages of relative mode
outweigh its disadvantages compared to the tedium of writing in absolute
mode. So at least for now, I'm sticking with relative mode. Please don't
deprecate it!


T

-- 
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. -- 
Elbert Hubbard