Bryan Creer wrote:
>Laurie Grifiths says -
>
>> History: There used to be an ABC developers list, only. Then there was a
>> users list as well, then development issues started getting discussed on the
>> users list and a consensus seemed to develop that users were interested
>> enough in what went on that everything was on the users list. So now there
>> is only a users list, but it's used for everything. Not sure if the users
>> list is actually dead and rotted or if it exists but is unused. The
>> difference is academic anyway.
>
>I can't see why this justifies the assertion that the rules of abc are
>decided by democratic vote of developers.
No, it doesn't. What does justify that statement is that only the developers
are in a position to judge how much work is involved in implementing any
given suggestion, and what effect that change is likely to have on the
future of abc. If WE like it it gets done; if not, it wont, because WE
are the ones that will have to do the work. Now if you don't like that
Bryan, you know what you can do.
>This IS the users list and a lot
>of users contribute to it but you're right that the difference is academic if
>(some) developers feel that they have some right by ancient precedent to
>ignore the wishes of users.
I don't think it's at all unreasonable to ignore the wishes of users when
I consider those wishes to be a) unreasonable, b) impractical or c)
detrimental to the language in the long term.
>Phil Taylor opposes the sharps/flats version of
>the K: command explicitly BECAUSE it would be taken up by the vast majority
>of users.
Nope, I oppose it because it would be detrimental to the language.
>You, infamously, said "WE like it the way it is."
He's right. WE (by and large) do.
>John Henckel
>says "The K: should FORCE people to identify the tonic." Not much democracy
>there.
Any system of democracy involves a franchise: there are always some people
who are entitled to vote and some who are not. We don't allow children,
criminals, lunatics or the Queen to elect our politicians, although there's
nothing to stop any of those people making suggestions or pronouncing opinions.
>> What Groucho said was that he wouldn't want to be a member of any club that
>> would have him.
>> (Think about it. I am not going to elaborate, now or ever).
>
>OK, so I bent Groucho's words a bit but the point is that Phil Taylor has
>told me that I am now a member of the developers club and that I'm "entitled"
>to vote on the abc rules. No thanks. I don't recognise the authority that
>gives me that entitlement and do not want any greater rights than any other
>user.
Ah, I see you are an anarchist of the "Dont vote, it only encourages them"
school. You'd rather be chucking metaphorical molotov cocktails.
>> Some of the points were responded to - look at the archives if your memory
>> fails.
>
>Yes, sigh, the passing of the years. Just to help me out, think of a few
>non-major tunes, look them up on John Chambers' tune finder and then explain
>to me again, nice and slowly, why it is better to specify an incorrect tonic
>than none at all.
It's all been answered before Bryan:
(From me)
It's better to put up with a few trivial mistakes of this kind
than to lose the advantages of the present system.
(From Jack Campin - paraphrased from memory)
It's actually helpful because when you see this kind of error you know
not to trust the rest of that transcriber's work.
>> Some of us are of the opposite opinion.
>
>But not, according to Phil Taylor, the vast majority of users.
See above.
>> Where a consensus emerges, things get done.
>
>No they don't. I think most people agree that the V: command is a good idea.
> A few developers have done their own implementations of it but it hasn't
>been proposed for the standard in a way that everybody can take up.
It's Janmes Allwright's idea; if he hasn't yet proposed a formal standard
for it it's probably because he and others are still developing it.
>John
>Chambers made some proposals for more sophisticated repeats that made little
>impact.
The next version of BarFly will incorporate this (if I ever get it
debugged).
>There was a lengthy discussion about transposition a while ago that
>came to no particular conclusin after which a few people went off and did
>what they thought best.
Not at all. We ended up with some consistant proposals which Laurie has
already implemented, and which will also go into the next BarFly version.
>The abc2ps system seems to consist of umpteen
>different versions, each of which may contain a good idea but none of which
>contain all of them. The sourceforge project that was meant to sort that out
>seems to have been met with massive indifference. Things DON'T get done.
So get off your arse and do something about it. It's much easier to
criticise other people's work than to produce the goods yourself, isn't
it?
>Which is the sad thing. Even if I do manage to persuade everybody that I'm
>right and that even the mode purists would benefit from having less
>misinformation around, it still won't actually happen. "Interesting" things
>like bracketing advisory accidentals will always take priority.
>
You are right. Think about it for a while and you may eventually realise
why that is the case.
Phil Taylor
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