asymmetric mini-notation explanation: slow down/repeat

[jwaldmann]

I'm not sure about the right place for the following remark. It's nothing critical.

While preparing a presentation for a seminar, and looking up sources of documentation, I noticed that https://tidalcycles.org/index.php/Mini_notation_syntax uses asymmetric wording:

• * repeat a pattern
• / slow down a pattern

In the source code, it's TPat_Fast and TPat_Slow, translated to fast and slow, and ultimately, _slow r p = _fast (1/r) p, so it's fully symmetric. And I can indeed write foo*2 as foo/1%2.

But then "repeat" should be "speed up"?

I agree that the common (beginners) usage is bd sn*2 and there it looks like repetition. But that's related to the (mis)conception that foo bar means concatenation, while it actually is "play one cycle from each, in turn".

Well, tough times. Education is always about revelaing the truth only gradually...

[jwaldmann]

This text uses symmetric naming ("speeds up"/"slows down") https://tidalcycles.org/index.php/Tutorial#Using_.2A_and_.2F_on_Groups

[yaxu]

Yes a tricky one! I still rather like 'density' and 'sparsity', but I have generally been standardising on 'speed up' and 'slow down'..

[ndr-brt]

Should this be moved to https://github.com/tidalcycles/tidal-doc ?

[yaxu]

Yes lets move all doc issues there. Shall I leave this one with you?

[ndr-brt]

Woa, I pasted the wrong link, sorry, I meant on the official one.

[yaxu]

yes thought so :)

[ndr-brt]

btw, I think we could move this too :)