[r-t] Practical Extension

[Philip Earis]

Tim: "there isn't going to be a eureka moment when nearly everyone agrees
we've found the ideal solution"

Indeed - that's why it's so important not to try to mandate (what are
intrinsically flawed and not universal) extension rules, forcing or
denying giving certain names to certain strings of notation.

By all means come up with some advisory extension algorithms. Indeed, I
would be strongly in favour of fair attribution, and formally naming the
algorithm based on the current rules the "Robin Woolley twatt principles".

Graham, a genuinely clever chap, makes the point that the current rules
(or Robin Woolley twatt principles) "on the whole generate good
extensions". Great. But he ignores the even-more-important point (that Don
wisely highlights) that they fail in many cases, and often deny palpably
reasonable extensions. The failure is inherent. You simply can't just
patch these up...you need to endlessly hard-code arbitrary value
judgements and get-out clauses.

Let's look at some of the most frequently-run methods:

1) Plain Bob Minor - under the current rules (Robin Woolley twatt
principles), this extends to 7 bells not as Plain Bob triples, but instead
as the method widely known as Grandsire Triples

2) Bristol Major - the method widely known as Bristol Royal is not a valid
extension under the current rules (Robin Woolley twatt principles).

3) Cambridge minor - Cambridge, Yorkshire, Pudsey, whatever, take your pick

I could go on...