Christian Marcus Cepel wonders: | | I wonder, if at some point in the future, the committe who establishes the | abc standard might not consider an alternative to ascii text as a file | format. I know on first glance there are those who will shudder and | scream, but why not. If a standard was created that could not be edited | in a text editor, these problems go away. Filesize could still be kept | down. The only concession would be that all editing would have to be done | inside an 'abc' editor. Just a brain-hiccup. I know it will never | happen, but it is _one_ possible solution, that could be implemented if | implemented correctly.
This ignores the fact that one of abc's major roles is as a way of exchanging music via email and the web. If you come up with an abc editor that is incompatible with these uses, it simply won't be used. We do have a lot of (commercial) music packages that use a private format. They have their uses. But they can't be used to communicate music with others, unless you have first made certain that the others have exactly the same software that you have. ABC has been successful mostly because it allows us to eschange tunes with others without (much) concern for what sort of software they're using. You are certainly free to make your own notation, as similar to or different from abc as you like. But if it isn't plain text, it won't compete with abc. If you have enough good features, you may compete with the commercial packages, and you may even make some money. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
