Re: Language selection code

[Simon Albrecht]

Am 27.03.2015 um 10:39 schrieb David Kastrup:
> Simon Albrecht <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > Am 27.03.2015 um 09:24 schrieb David Kastrup:
> > > Simon Albrecht <address@hidden> writes:
> > >
> > > > Hello,
> > > >
> > > > triggered by a discussion on -user I have begun to implement a new
> > > > \language command which in addition to setting the note names input
> > > > language
> > > Why would you set the note names input language?
> > Huh? That’s only what \language has always been used for.
> Then it would seem to be a bad idea to misuse this command for
> specifying an output language setting.
>
> > IIUC, you mean: I write a document using \language MY_NATIVE_LANGUAGE
> > (thus for input and output), then I want to send it to my french
> > publisher (contrived example… :-)), change into \language francais,
> > and all the note input is broken?
> > In that case you’d have to distinguish input and output language using
> > \language input.MY_NATIVE_LANGUAGE
> > \language output.francais.
> >
> > I hope that makes it clearer.
> There was nothing unclear to me previously.  I just don't think it makes
> any sense to conflate document language selection with the \language
> command.  The \language commands works on LilyPond syntax, not on
> document language.
There were some other syntax designs I considered, see 
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-lilypond/2015-03/msg00081.html>. 
(Unfortunately a tracker issue hasn’t been created yet for this thread.)
It was my personal view that it’s the most elegant and intuitive 
solution to use one command as in my last draft. Do you think it’s too 
much syntactic sugar to have \language "deutsch" translate the tagline 
also? Is the interface too complicated? The name \language is so generic 
that to me it seems disproportionate to have it refer to note names 
only, regardless of whether we have got used to it.
I think these advantages are enough of a reason for making this (small) 
syntax change. But if many would prefer separate commands, a combination 
of e.g.
\language "english" % for notenames only, warrants backward 
compatibility also
\outputLanguage "suomi" % (or \titlingLanguage, \documentLanguage or 
whatever) for tagline and table of contents
would be even easier to implement – although now I’ve already taken the 
hurdle :-) and learned much on the way.
Is there any standard procedure to discuss such syntax issues? Or does 
it just happen on the list and everyone who has an opinion may chime in? 
As I already said on -bug, it does play a role if it’s more common (or 
more advisable) to separate note name language from output language or not.

Yours, Simon