[r-t] Yorkshire Surprise Minor, etc

[Mark Davies]

Ian Anderson asks,

> At the current rate, when do you think we will run out of
 > method names?

Strange question, but I think I can see the point behind it! Never, of 
course. And in some ways, having a great big shared namespace for all 
methods wouldn't be so bad, and would force people to be imaginative. 
One example is this composition:

http://bronze-age.com/spliced/major-planets.html

When I helped Simon produce this, some of the planets had been rung, 
some hadn't, so I created a couple of new methods to fit the concept, 
including Neptune Delight. The result is a reasonably neat homage to 
both Holst and Holt, and I'm pleased with it.

But sadly no-one's rung it, and last year along came another band who 
pealed Neptune Delight and gave it a different name. I asked them nicely 
if they would change their name, but in the end they refused. However of 
course there are other perfectly good "Holst" names for these methods, 
so Simon and I settled on "Neptune the Mystic", and the "Holst's 
Original" concept sails on.

The moral of the story is, you can always find a good name.

However... and there's always a however... there are some benefits to 
the namespaces we have. I do for instance have the option of recomposing 
the entire "Holst" peal with a new Neptune Surprise method, which might 
have been better. There are also methods where a similar name has been 
given in a different class to show an extension-like relationship, such 
as Snow Tiger Surprise Royal vs Snow Tiger Delight Maximus - a neat 
inversion of the issue I discussed in my previous post. Plus of course 
there are probably hundreds of existing methods with the same name in 
different classes, and thousands of ringers who like calling "Surprise" 
and "Delight".

And, I quite like that all of that. No, you might not have adopted this 
system if you were building changeringing from scratch today, but on the 
other hand it would be really sad to clear away *all* the complex, 
beautiful patina of centuries of ringing history.

My view is - let's clear out enough of the baggage so we can move 
forward and keep innovating, but let's not destroy the past completely. 
To me, that means revising the classification system so that it is fit 
for purpose, not revoking it completely.

MBD

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus