From: "Jack Campin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> You are completely and fundamentally confused about the whole > purpose of a musical notation. It is to mediate communication > of artistic creations between human beings. The fact that a > computer might be used as a transport medium is secondary. We > are not writing for an audience of machines... Actually, in developing a standard for abc one is doing *exactly that*. A human reader can cope with all sorts of devations from the standard. Computers however do not have the same facility for applying common sense and intuition. If anyone wants to read abc and print it with a computer, then you need a standard; if not then you don't. Thus while the computer's needs are indeed secondary for *music*, they certainly are not secondary for having a *standard*. > If the computer is simply going to sit there as a censor stopping > me saying what I want, well, fuck the computer, That's another area where computers may be less interesting than people. :-( > I can write ABC on > paper perfectly well (and have done, I have a stack of notebooks > of it). No. If there is a standard and what you write does not conform to it, then you are not writing ABC but rather you are writing something *roughly like* ABC. For human consumption this may be ok - but it will rule out computer processing of your files with many computer applications - perhaps all. This is your choice. >What will actually happen: people will write within certified > standard syntaxes up to the point where they need more. Then they > either turn off the flag that enables the standard checks, or if > the application won't let them, ditch it and find one that will. Which is why I suggested (what others turned into) the namespace idea for %%... lines and between !...! That way the standard admits extension methods which allow files still to conform to the standard. You can use it for what you like and software will be able to cope with it by ignoring anyting it doesn't understand. > I have a few bits of ABC on my CD-ROMs that no existing application > can process, and the scores and sound files do not always correspond > to the ABC I give. This is absolutely intentional. I document what > my ABC means, and if the computer can't yet understand what any > intelligent human can, that's not my problem.... Indeed not. And when the day comes that all musicians can read directly from ABC text instead of needing notes on stave lines, then it will be nobody's problem. But I am not holding my breath. The problem is that there are files in existence for which a standard cannot be defined which encompasses all of them. Nothing can be done about this, except for individual software developers to try and design software which copes. The point of defining a standard is so that this deeply unsatisfactory situation will not get worse or be repeated in future. The fact that "you document what your ABC means" is fine. Others may do so too. And when abc becomes really popular a million other people may also document what *their* abc means, and software developers can start working through the documentation, seaching for inconsistencies, and in the almost impossible event where they fnd none, can start working though the million documents in order to make their software read all million dialects of abc. But more likely they are up the creek without the encumbrance of having a paddle. Dave David Webber Author of MOZART the music processor for Windows - http://www.mozart.co.uk Member of the North Cheshire Concert Band http://www.northcheshire.org.uk To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
