Re: Google Summer of Code 2015

[David Kastrup]

"Phil Holmes" <address@hidden> writes:

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David Kastrup" <address@hidden>
> To: "David Garfinkle" <address@hidden>
> Cc: <address@hidden>
> Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2015 9:01 AM
> Subject: Re: Google Summer of Code 2015
>
>
>> Actually anything.  LilyPond does neither export nor import MusicXML.
>
> It does import it, albeit probably not perfectly:
>
> http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.19/Documentation/usage/invoking-musicxml2ly

No, as I said, that is not LilyPond importing MusicXML but rather a
Python utility producing a LilyPond file (one with older syntax if I am
not mistaken).  LilyPond itself is not even called.

Ok, conversion into a LilyPond file is likely what "importing" is
sort-of about.  But what would be nicer in my book is if LilyPond read
and _interpreted_ MusicXML, bypassing the conversion into whatever
LilyPond input language dialect altogether.  That would be quite more
robust and long-term dependable.

Sort of like how GhostScript these days gets to _interpret_ rather more
PDF files than PostScript files.  It does not really bother converting
them into PostScript form first.  The xpdf and/or poppler suite may have
a "true" pdftops program that isn't a PostScript interpreter supporting
a different input syntax.  Which also has its place.

But in our case I think we'd be better off by focusing on teaching
MusicXML straight to LilyPond.

-- 
David Kastrup