If anyone is interested in organising this sort of competition, it's
important to work out what the purpose is. Do we want to test:
- the capacity of the software for producing complex notation?
- the capacity of the software for producing clear, readable notation?
- the capacity of the software for producing notation that complies to
certain editors' parameters?
- the capacity of the software for reproducing a given printed piece in
all details?
- the time it takes to create a given score?
- the difficulty of producing the desired effects?
- the amount of tweaking necessary to produce the desired effects?
In all cases, it's difficult to find a way of objectively testing the
software itself. With any one of the major engraving programs a person
who is a real expert of that particular program should be able to
produce just about any desired effect. Of course there will be
different amounts of tweaking going on in each case, ranging from
simple adjustments to full-blown workarounds, but there's no way to
have really accurate information about that, and in matters of ease of
use its hard to make meaningful comparisons between programs that work
in such different ways.
The quality of the finished piece will be more dependent on the
engraver's care and skills than on the actual tools he or she is using.
At the end we will always be judging the engraver more than the
software.
Michael Cook
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