On Tue, 1 Jul 2003, I. Oppenheim wrote:
> So, Jef and Guido, what do you think? Are you willing
> to discuss your ideas with us?
I'll just give you my point of view. Since the latest draft three years
ago, the so called 'committee' hasn't produced a single line of text;
please correct me if I'm wrong. In the meantime, skilled developers like
Jean-François quietly kept on working. As a result, we now have abcm2ps,
which is arguably one of the best (_the_ best?) music typesetters on
earth. Seymour Shlien has resumed working on the abcMIDI suite, adding
many changes that make it more compatible with abcm2ps. Phyl Tailor
enhanced his wonderful BarFly - too bad it's neither free nor
multiplatform. On my part, I wrote abcpp which allows me to write portable
ABC files; and managed to convince Joerg Anders to add ABC support in
NoteEdit...
We're almost there. I'm finishing a document I named "A proposal of ABC
2.0.0 standard"; it includes the latest 1.7.6 draft (verbatim), and adds
the least common denominator of multivoice support, low level details
(e.g. %%stuff), portability issues, some ABC examples, and so on. Then I
point out that there are details that inherently only make sense in
printed music, others in played music; I'm covering those too.
I'm also working on extending my manual "Typesetting Music wit ABC", that
some of you liked so much - thank you for the nice words! - to change it
so that it's called "Writing Music with ABC". That is, I'm adding a second
part covering playing ABC files in addition to typesetting them.
In my humble opinion, when we have an ABC typesetting and an ABC player
application that are powerful, free, multiplatform, and compatible with
each other, we automatically have a 'de facto' standard. At that point,
other applications will have better try and follow the new standard for
their own good.
I'll say that again, we are almost there! Seymor is working on some
details I reported to him; when he's done, abcm2ps and abc2midi will
support virtually the same ABC (2?) syntax.
To sum up, call me the coordinator if you wish; but bear in mind that
you're free to toss my work and dedication out of the window if you wish,
I'll not get upset. I just believe that with a bit of coordination - I did
nothing more than this - we'll soon have the new standard.
My .02 Ec.
Ciao,
Guido =8-)
--
Guido Gonzato, Ph.D. <guido . gonzato at univr . it> - Linux System Manager
Universita' di Verona (Italy), Facolta' di Scienze MM. FF. NN.
Ca' Vignal II, Strada Le Grazie 15, 37134 Verona (Italy)
Tel. +39 045 8027990; Fax +39 045 8027928 --- Timeas hominem unius libri
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