Re: Do have I found a bug ?

[Graham Percival]

On Sun, 23 Feb 2003 10:51:57 +0100
Alexandre Beneteau <address@hidden> wrote:
> Would you agree if I would say lilypond's error messages are sometimes
> confusing ?

I'll agree that some programs have more useful error messages.  However,
I don't intend that statement to be a criticism of the work that people
have done on Lilypond.  It's essentially a compiler -- it takes in
arbitrary text input and attempts to create sheet music.  How good are
the error messages in gcc?

I don't think anything's really _wrong_ with the error messages.  If
something doesn't work, it tells you that something's wrong.  I don't
rely on the program to figure out what's wrong; I just roll up my
sleeves and start commenting out tons of lines (or entire instruments)
in my input file.  Once I've found the approximate source of the error,
I go though the code carefully to find the actual mistake.

I don't think that error messages have been a big priority, and I think
that's a good decision.  In a year or so (if not already), the various
graphical music programs (noteedit, rosegarden4, etc) will be very
useful and stable.  Most people will use those programs to write their
music, then use the "export lilypond" option to create some nice sheet
music (or even better, the graphical program will automatically call
lilypond to create a "print preview").

Of course Lilypond would be better if the error messages were better,
but the developers have other concerns (one of them recently completed
a thesis).  If you send in patches that improve the error messages,
I'm sure they'd be quite happy to accept them.  :)

Cheers,
- Graham