[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > I also think that we've finished dealing with any squabbles > we don't want to make public, so this discussion should be > moved to lilypond-devel.
[done] > > If you want LilyPond to be used for archival purposes, we must find a > > way to offer stable syntax. So, the volatile parts must be factored > > out or separated. > > This point is probably obvious to programmers, but since my complaint > started this, I'd like to make sure it's clear: what's really required > is > a computer-upgradable syntax, not a stable syntax. A stable syntax > would be nice (in that we wouldn't have to spend time updating > convert-ly), but that doesn't need to be the main goal. Yes - unfortunately, computer-upgradable syntax is hard to do. Generally, people want to retain their whitespace, comments and identfiers. When a .ly file is parsed, that information is thrown away. Even if we keep it, for complex upgrades (the kind that convert-ly doesn't handle), that information will be difficult to retain. Of course, when people would also use computer-upgradable syntax (eg. by using RoseGarden or somesuch to process files) in daily life, the upgrades would be easier, but that's not the case yet. > If I (or mutopia, or whoever) has to run convert-ly on a 10-year old > file and wait for two minutes while convert-ly updates the file, that's > no problem. The only problem is if we need to run convert-ly and > then edit the result manually. The problem that I see is that writing such a nice converter can easily take months of developer time, which will not be put into better typesetting features. That's a dear price to pay for saving a little work. The syntax of basic music input hasn't changed appreciably since lilypond-2.0. For the future, we have plans to build a GNOME-based GUI for tweaking, which completely separates out tweaks into different files. I don't really see what else we can do. Although I sympathize with Graham's frustrations over hand-editing files, I don't understand the real problem, other than the fact that LilyPond 1.6 syntax sucked, so we had to change it - which is why A) we have much better syntax in 2.4 B) there is a painful conversion process necessary. -- Han-Wen Nienhuys | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen _______________________________________________ lilypond-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-devel
