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On 11/07/01 at 10.27 Phil Taylor wrote:
>Gianni Cunich wrote:
>
>>It's plain to see that the total lack of cooperation among the
>>developers subscribing to this list has a lot to do with this,
>>although I don't think there's anything we could do about it at this
>>stage. If anybody still believes the abc notation could be taken in
>>serious consideration outside the folk circles, the best for him.
>>IMO, the endless debate on the sex of angels that has being going on
>>this list for the past four years, and that has made any update of
>>the standard impossible so far, was what actually gave it the kiss
>>of death. How long those who are responsible for the notation demise
>>will need to face this basic thruth is of course their own
>>problem... not mine!
>
>I don't think the facts bear out what you are saying here Gianni.
>Over the last four years the popularity of abc has increased enormously.
>A few days ago I dug out all of John Chambers reports on his web crawler's
>results and plotted the estimated number of tunes on the web against
>time. You can see the results at:
>
>http://rbu01.ed-rbu.mrc.ac.uk/abcstats.gif
>
>(Bear in mind John's own reservations about the accuracy of this data>)
>The number of tunes on the web has grown in a consistent logarithmic
>fashion for the last four years. Add to that the fact that the abc
>home page gets the top rating of any music notation site on Google
>and you conclude that despite all evidence to the contrary we must
>have been doing something right.
Considering we are at it, maybe we could compare as well the logarithmic growth of the
abc tunes availble on the web with the exponential growth of the erotic web sites!
Also, considering the abc home page is an unreliable, rarely (and never
comprehensively) updated source of informations, I am not really sure about if its
inclusion among the top rating music notation site in Google is anything positive. For
instance, when I first browsed thru it about four years ago, I read that to use
abc2mtex or even abc2ps I had to own a C compiler and know how to use it! Actually, I
needed a few weeks to realize that abc2mtex and abc2ps portings were available for all
the major platforms... yet, the statment is still there! And what about the software
list? I could name at least four programs - one of them is at least an half decent
one, and another one a pretty excellent product -, yet the only update I have seen
recently is...ABC Improvisor!? And, of course, you'll find no mention of !
the fact that there is an almost virtual, self appointed committee in charge of
updating the standard...
Who are you trying to fool, Phil? Be serious, please ! I do not wish to be
deliberately offensive, but a friend of mine was known to comment your sort of
statements with a clear: "Millions of flyes feed themselves with...(you know
what!).How can they be wrong?" - I fear he had plenty of reasons to!
>>What makes me feel sick (those who have read my last postings kown
>>its my pavlovian reaction when I start discussing about the abc
>>notation) is that, while we have been throwing away the baby with
>>the bath water, someone else has built in concrete on Chris
>>Walshaw's original intuition to create some excellent software.
>>
>>If you wish a nice example of what I mean, have a look at this web site:
>>
>>http://www.zelsoftware.com/
>>
>>Zel, in fact, it's described as a language to create midi files from
>>a text file, eventually to load them in a sequencer for further
>>editing.. Everybody, having a look at the quick tutor on the site
>>(the page is called Learn Zel in 10 minutes), will be able to see
>>how much it has in common with the abc notation.
>>
>
>Zel is a commercial product controlled by one person, who can change the
>format in any way he wants. It is _very_ midi orientated, making no
>concessions whatsoever to music notation. So, as far as I can see,
>it has no way of representing beams, slurs or repeats. It is much more
>sophisticated than abc when it comes to generating midi (but then that's
>a relatively minor part of what abc is about). Zel (the program) is
>only available for one platform (windows). Zel files can hold only
>one tune, and since Zel tunes have no defined start or end markers
>you cannot embed them in ordinary text as you can for abc. While there
>are around 100 K abc tunes on the web, there are about a dozen in Zel
>format.
>
>These are conclusions reached after about fifteen minutes reading the
>Zel site, and my not be entirely accurate, but even so it's no contest.
Yes, Zel is a commercial program, and is controlled by one person/software house. And
so what? If a commercial program is an excellent bit of software, made by a competent
developer, that for a reasonable price I can use to achieve my own goals, what's wrong
with it? I'd love to have a number of free abc related software of half that quality!
I would even pay for them! I did pay for a few of those available that suited me -
like abc2win and abcmus, for instance -, yet Zel is tatally a different planet, and
the free version (limited only in the number of notes...1500!) is more than enough for
the complex tune I'd ever dare to notate!
Yes, Zel is not a music notation oriented text format, nor pretends to be it. Just
like, for the matter, the abc notation isn't - or wasn't intended to be - a midi
files generation oriented text format. And I still think that an abc file should be
left uncluttered by the silly non standard implementations needed to use this or that
native package. Yet, any abc player could easily strip the abc files from the
redundant (i.e. not needed to generate a midi file) elements, and offer the same
capabilities of Zel. The only condition, of course, would be having someone competent
to write the code! But then, to realize it, you should have followed the suggestion I
gave to the Windows users: download the free version and experiment with it to see
what it is capable of. Browsing thru the web site will just show you how close the Zel
language and the abc notation are, not what Zel can do.
And yes, that a Zel file can contain just one single tune is true as well, although it
doesn't bother me at all. In first place, a Zel file is used to generate a midi file,
so what would be the sense in storing one hundred tunes in one single Zel file, if
anyway it would be meant to generate a hundred midi files? Given this, If I really
wish to use a flexible, user friendly notation package, like Melody Assistant (another
software I am satisfied I have registered) or the NoteWorthy Composer, that's the
rule...one tune = one file. To store a whole tune book you have to use a typesetting
package... yet, none of those currently avalable really supports the abc notation
except for the all too limited original standard (well, maybe Lilypond with abc2ly
might... but after reading the Lilypond user manual I decided I saw no reason to waste
time to even test it.. especially considering who is supporting iy on this mailing
list ;-)).
Finally, yes again, Zel is only available for Windows. What a pity! Yet a number of
abc related softwares are available for other platforms only, but nobody did seem to
care about it so far...if you are a Linuze user, try Wine or some sort of emulator. If
you are a Mac user, be happy about tha fact Macs are still available because Bill
Gates thought it was a good idea to invest his money on the dying Apple firm to make
of it a domestic competitor in order to counteract the Linuze menace... use Barfly,
and forget about it!
You're right Phil, no contest! Unfortunately you failed to realize who is the real
winner....the next time you feel inclined to make comparison, listen to this humble
old workhorse, take fifteen days (rather than fifteen minutes!) to make your mind
about any relevant matter. You'll probably end up avoiding to express any opinuion at
all - and the best for us all! :-)).
Gianni
P.S: BTW, I was told that quality, and not quantity, is what actually matters...
anybody wish to argue about the quantity of relevant/vital informations about the
musical stuff uploaded on the web has got lost because of the
quite_but_not_really_yet_updated abc standard compliance? Or, to say better, about
what this means in terms of quality? There is hardly any sense in telling that a midi
file is a rather poor exchange musical medium when what we have to compare with it
doesn't even supply any universally agreed symbol for a mordent or a fermata! This is
another matter of fact, indeed, and if you can't see it...well, again, it's your
problem, not mine! And the number of the abc home page visitors, as we are used to say
over here, really means a "round nothing"! (an idiom I will be glad to "translate" off
the list for anybody interested .-)).
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