On Tuesday, 9 March 1999, Christoph Dalitz writes:
> Jan Nieuwenhuizen wrote:
> >
> > What is so exceptionally clumsy about a simple file
> > like input/example-1.fly:
> >
> > c'4 d e f g a b c
> >
> > % A simple scale in Mudela.
> > %
> > % Type:
> > %
> > % ly2dvi example-1
> > % xdvi example-1 # or your dvi viewer here
> > %
> > i fail to see the clumsiness here?
>
> Actually this example does not work:
?
Of course it works, it's built into every LilyPond website.
> the errorprone \bla{fasel} cascades are missing.
Sigh.
> > What are your specific grudges, do you have suggestions
> > for improvement? In any case, we *don't* want to make
> > ugly hacks or cryptic abbreviations that could lead to
> > obscurity or even ambiguity when the input becomes more
> > complex. (As an off-topic example, i would like to refer
> > to the horrors of the perl language.)
>
> Ok, Perl is a horrible language indeed. Nevertheless it
> can be very useful in certain situations.
>
> Just like mudela ;-)
See? It's easy to complain (about mudela), but it's not so
easy to come up with something better. We've been thinking
and developing mudela for quite some time. It's just that
music has a complex, two-dimensional structure. The first
objective of mudela is to be able to handle all music in
an elegant way. I'm not saying that mudela cannot be improved,
only that i haven't seen a better alternative.
> > The input to Mup is especially broken, imnsho, because
> > it is not even a language. While it may save some typing,
> > it gets really hairy when you want to do complex things.
>
> The same applies to lilypond: Entering more than one voice
Nonsense, mudela *is* a language.
> per staff means a long try and error series, especially since
Read the documentation, or have a look at the examples. There
are a few simple rules, no magic going on. No need for trial
and error, the language is clearly defined.
> the liliypond processor is quite slow.
Yes, unfortunately lilypond can be slow.
If you really cannot figure-out what the input should look like,
better to try it out with one note per voice.
> I fear this will deter musicians from accepting lilypond,
> unless they are hackers.
Again, if you can make improvements, please go ahead and do so.
If you can only complain, please go away and complain about
something else.
The technofobe will want to use a score editor front-end anyway.
> > You may also send a
> > request to your packager (RedHat?) to distribute GNU LilyPond.
> >
>
> Good idea!
>
> My distributor is SuSE; I have tried the lilypond.rpm
> for Red Hat, but that does not work on SuSE-Linux due to missing
> shared libraries: libreadline.so.3 and some c++ stuff.
>
> Are there any distributions which already contain lilypond?
Yes, Debian of course.
Jan.
Jan Nieuwenhuizen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | GNU LilyPond - The music typesetter
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jantien/ | http://www.lilypond.org/
