Emerging from a long hibernation to say how glad I am to see that a great deal of sense is being talked about the possibilities for a new standard; especially by some of the newer members of this list.
I am not am abcm2ps user but, as far as I understand it, Jean-François is doing brilliant work in that area. I have had a look at Guido's abc manual and, while there are things I am not happy about, I think it is an excellent piece of work although, as he puts it himself, rather abcm2ps-centric. However, (those that know me will have seen that coming) I am rather concerned by the following statement from Guido - >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. In similar vein, Ulf recently said - > There is no way to isolate a standard from the software that uses it I fundamentally disagree with this. I believe that it is imperative that the standard and the software that uses it should be isolated. A quick glance at Frank Nordberg's abc applications list shows 83 different pieces of software; it seems unfair to expect all the other developers to follow the lead dictated by one development strand "for their own good". There is no need for one piece of software to be cross platform nor for it to cater for all users. Specialist Mac software such as BarFly can take advantage of the particular characteristics of their machine. No individual programme needs to implement the whole standard. Programmes aimed at western folk musicians may not need some of the complexities of classical music (or Klezmer or Persian). It is that abstract entity ABC itself that needs to be universal. Bryan Creer To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
