Re: sustainOn

[Valentin Villenave]

2008/7/8 James E. Bailey <address@hidden>:

> I vote, as a pianist, for sustainDown/sustainUp. Who's with me?

Oh, please don't make it a "with me" question... Understanding your
point of view and sharing or not doesn't make anyone "with" or
"without" you.

Actually, it is as a pianist too that I proposed this change several
weeks ago... (and yes, following the discussions on -devel is quite
interesting, it took me to a whole new level when I first subscribed
to it).

I fully understand your point, as much as I hope you understand
Graham's. When I suggested that, it wasn't really because of a
possible confusion with Up and Down as in \stemUp and \stemDown; it
was simply because I noticed that my (French) pupils had a (slightly)
hard time understanding what was \sustainDown for. On/Off is much more
natural to them (again, as non-English speakers), since it's the same
syntax as \textLengthOn for instance.

Please, try to think of On/Off as a simple-looking syntax, not a
computer-ish thing. Yes, it looks binary, but Down/Up was actually
binary too: where I would completely agree with you is if LilyPond
allowed for "semi-down" pedal, which it currently doesn't.
Since Down/Up is slightly less self-explanatory for beginners,
non-pianist or non-English speakers, I proposed On/Off.

And Mark has a good point: we can even have a "alternate predefined
commands" bunch of snippets in the LSR, in case we'd like to maintain
some commands such as \fatText, \sustainDown etc.

Cheers,
Valentin