[r-t] The null change

[Don Morrison]

On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 10:27 AM, Tim Barnes <tjbarnes23 at gmail.com> wrote:
> let's start the debate on the null change.  Should this be allowed in a
> β-method's sequence of changes?  Clearly this produces repeating rows, but
> the method could still be used to generate a true multi-extent round block.

While you've framed the question fairly tightly, it really is part of
a whole hierarchy of questions, where the answer to a question higher
up the hierachy can disallow a possible answer further down it.

1) Is the null change even a part of change ringing? Put another way,
when we define a "change" does that definition include the identity?

2a) If the answer to (1) is "yes", can we use the null change in calls?

2b) If the answer to (1) is "yes", can we use the null change in methods?

3) If the answer to (2b) is "yes", can we use the null change in α-methods?

4) If the answer to (3) is "yes", can we use the null change in β-methods?



While not relevant to (4) directly, I will note that from a purely
selfish perspective I would advocate strongly for the answer to (2a),
and thus also (1), to be "yes", as it is something I do frequently,
and I'd be horribly disappointed to have my own efforts viewed as Not
Change Ringing. For example, I think many of these probably included a
12345 single at the end of an extent:
<http://www.bb.ringingworld.co.uk/search.php?conductor=morrison&title=doubles&length=1250>



If all of (2b), (3) and (4) do not have the same answer we are in a
position similar to the current mess where arbitrary distinctions,
such as number of consecutive blows in the same position, move things
between methods and non-method blocks. From this it seems likely best
that whatever we choose ends up applying equally to (2b), (3) and (4).



The argument against including the null change would seem to revolve
around things being too static to legitimately be called "change
ringing". At the most extreme, do we want to consider ringing rounds
over and over "change ringing"? It's one of those subjective spectra
where we need to find some way to specify when things slide from being
"change ringing" into no longer being "change ringing".

At the same time, if we really are trying to be descriptive, to really
just describe what it is ringers do, or may in the future do, rather
than telling them what they may do, we have to be careful not to cut
things too close. Looked at another way, just because we are careful
to allow categorization of something that seems a bit outré to us
doesn't mean folks will do it; we're not going to cause any harm to
ringing or to ringers by being liberal in what we can describe.

I think a possible, sensible position might be:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

All the sequences of changes generated by a method must include at least
one non-null change.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Note that for a β-method there is only one sequence of changes
generated.]

This would allow ringing things in whole pulls. There's a bit of
historical baggage we're carrying around where we deprecate this. But
really, if folks +want+ to ring things in whole pulls who are we to
tell them they can't and refuse to describe and record what it is they
do? In fact, I'd have a good deal of respect for them: I'm pretty sure
ringing a well struck extent of Cambridge Minor in whole pulls is
harder and requires more concentration (and possibly even bell
control) than ringing it the usual way (more concentration because you
don't get the handstrokes and backstrokes helping you remember where
you are). And besides ringing things in whole pulls, even more extreme
examples of things we would consider odd would be possible. But if
folks want to do that, who are we to tell them they musn't?

Note that this applies to all of (2a), (3) and (4), though its natural
position in a definition would be in the definition of "method", before
even defining the more restricted classes of methods currently being
denoted by Greek letters.





-- 
Don Morrison <dfm at ringing.org>
"Fiction-writers ... have issued to the world more political and social
truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians,
publicists and moralists put together."   -- Karl Marx, "The English Middle
                              Class", New-York Daily Tribune, 1 August 1854