a better convert-ly

[Han-Wen Nienhuys]

address@hidden 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   |   address@hidden   |   http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen