Comment #22 on issue 2149 by [email protected]: Patch: Creates
non-negative-integer? predicate.
http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=2149
\bikeshedOn
In my experience, negation is a distraction for human mind. As a C
programmer, I strive to use "HAVE_FOO" rather than "HAVE_NO_FOO", even
when "HAVE_FOO" would be defined almost always. It's more important to
spare fellow programmers a few some logical operations in their minds than
to minimize the amount of defines for the compiler. It is human minds make
things work or break, and they should not be loaded with things computers
do better, such as interpreting "#ifndef HAVE_NO_FOO". Therefore,
any "non-x" is a non-starter in my opinion.
"unsigned-integer" or "unsigned" would be fine if Lilypond were a
development tool, as "un" in "unsigned" is not really normally thought of
as a negation, but more as a forced plus sign and and extra bit.
Since Lilypond is not (only) for programmers, "natural-integer" seems a
better choice. Even musicians study natural numbers in school. I know
that not everybody considers 0 a natural number, but Lilypond can be a bit
sloppy here. Mathematicians will excuse us. On the other hand,
simply "natural" would be confusing for some musicians, as it's an
accidental name.
Therefore I believe that the "natural-integer?" predicate would be the best
choice.
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