Re: Basic questions about LilyPond.

[Hans Forbrich]

I personally think many people go about the evaluation totally backwards.  
They first ask 'how easy is it to get started'.  

Unfortunately once the honeymoon is over, then it's time to get serious and 
accomplish some real tasks.  Every 'easy to use' package I've seen quickly 
grinds to a halt.

I encourage you to look at ALL the documented examples, especially the Tips 
and Tricks and the Regression Tests, as well as the results to be found at 
the Mutopia Project (http://www.mutopiaproject.org)

If the end result of Lilypond is flexible enough and visually satisfactory, 
then the cost [of setting up and learning] of Lilypond is worth it.  If you 
do not like what you see, then it's not worth your trouble.

Lilypond, whether on a Windows machine, a Mac or a Linux/Unix box is driven by 
a very simple keyboard input and edit mechanism (identical on all).  Many 
people look at that and run away in disgust because they wanbt to place the 
notes wit ha mouse - not realizing the mouse-based input they hope for will 
be quicker to learn but ultimately slow them significantly (in my case by 3x 
longer to do an equivalent score vs my eval of Finale) - your mileage may 
vary!!!

The worst part about Lilypond is that bugs, and problems get fixed too fast 
and features get implemented too quickly.

The best part about Lilypond is that musicians I for whom I've typeset copies 
have all universally commented on the quality and have enjoyed using the 
results.

One thing to keep in mind - Lilypond is not as composition tool, it is a music 
typesetting tool.  As far as I know Finale and Sibelius don't even attempt to 
make that claim.  (Finale - "music notation software"; Sibelius - 
"writing, playing, printing and publishing music notation").  Score wants to 
compare itself to 'traditional engraving' and probably comes closest of the 
commercial ones, but I find their entire font too 'round'.

/Hans