OK, Anselm, let me try. First of all it is NOT complicated to implement. It's pretty easy. Secondly a language or a notation is not to be judged by whether or not you can say silly things. (Anyone who judged a natural language by this criterion would have to be barking in fact quite out of their tiny, so let's not get our Allen's twisted). I can't imagine why anyone would want to write Q:1/4=120 1/4=80 which would have the effect of playing at 120 while showing 80, so I am not interested in whether it's legal or not. All non-trivial languages allow you to write stupid things. This sentence is a syntactically correct but syntactically incorrect sentence. This sentence is a colourless pink banana. 2+2 = -3.7 and so on.
So that leaves discussion of what you can do. People wanted a. The ability to define a name for a tempo OK - can do: Anywhere outside the scope of another tune and before the X: of the tune where it is to be used, write: Q:1/4=80 largo b. The ability to use that tempo and have it displayed and played. Can do: In the tune (body or header) write: Q: largo c. The ability to say something meaningful to a computer about how it is to be played at the same time as writing something meaningful to a human (and preferably meaning the same thing) displayed. Can do (but the bit about meaning the same thing is not enforced). In the header or body of the tune write Q:1/4=80 largo d. The ability to have a tempo set for the computer to play the music but without anything displayed. Can do: In the tune (body or header) write Q:1/4=80 - e. The ability to accept old style ABC. Can do, for instance Q: 1/4=80 f. Do all this without upsetting old programs too much if they are fed the new. As all the new stuff occurs on the end of a legal old-style command, there is reason to hope that old programs might not be too upset by versions c or d (and of course not by e). g. Do all this in such a way that it is easy to implement in existing or new computer programs. Now, considering that all of this is optional so you never need to use any of it unless you actually want to do these things, I submit it is *not* too complicated but is about as simple as it could possibly be. If you have a simpler scheme that does a..g, please say! Laurie ----- Original Message ----- From: Anselm Lingnau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ... > I think this is much too complicated. I'm still waiting for you (or > anybody) to explain why an ABC tune should contain one prescribed > explicit metronome speed for display and another, different, prescribed > explicit metronome speed for playback, and why this would be preferable > to letting users set their own playback speeds `ad hoc', external to the > ABC representation, with the ABC-provided speed as a (reasonable) default. > > Anselm To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
