Re: circle of fifths

[Simon Albrecht]

On 06.09.2016 16:59, Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> > P.S. I don’t think there should be anything _but_ the anglicised version in the 
> > LSR. It’s a very bad idea to use German variable names in probably any 
> > programming language.
> Hmmm… Then should we change the default language of Lilypond (e.g., for note 
> names) to “english”?
> <grabs popcorn>  ;)

I’m going to ignore that :-)

> Joking aside: I hear and appreciate your point. But I would suggest that, all 
> other things (e.g., coding time) being equal, it might be better all around if 
> the LSR contained an *internationalized* version (e.g., with the variable names 
> as strings in some list that can be switched in/out). Then there wouldn’t be 
> “anglicised” versions or anything — just a language-independent version, with 
> string sets for whichever languages have been added by users.

I think this isn’t worth the effort. Indeed it’s a bit unfortunate that 
(as I see it) working more with (and on) LilyPond almost invariably also 
requires knowing English quite well, but I don’t see how that could be 
helped.
Personally I also started using German variable names, but:
1. The longer I was using LilyPond the more I resented the language mix 
in the source code, so that now I use English for everything except for 
that which appears in the output (and, indeed, for note names, where for 
me it really makes a difference in efficiency of reading and writing).
2. The German manuals being outdated, I quickly switched to the English 
ones, so I really only know the English terminology.
3. With all the source code and command names in both LilyPond and 
Scheme using English names, I think it only adds confusion as well as 
obstacles in sharing code.
So I think we’d better be honest about the fact that it’s best to stick 
with English, and maybe bear in mind to not use too exclusive vocabulary 
in code.

Best, Simon