Re: Usability Question

[Andrzej Kopec]

Hi,
I also have a usability question. I'm using lilypond-2.10.11 (linux executable) 
on intel
centrino 1.4MHz with 256MB of RAM, and I cannot render 10 page chamber piece of 
music due
to lack of memory. after 15 min I stop "Layout outputting to 'xxx.ps'" and I 
found outputted
4 pages of 10. If I turn swap off, I'm given "Out of memory error". 

Last year I prepared 30-page orchestral score and I was forced to cut it into 4 
parts and
process them separately (lily-2.7.35). I remember I left lilypond rendering 
this piece for one night. It
didn't help. I won't mention some memory segm. faults which disappeared when 
eg. I changed
one tuplet to regular eighths (I had to change the piece, fortunately -- my 
own).

So my question is if I have to buy new hardware to be able to use my preferred 
software?
Or whether it would help if I compiled lily myself? Would I be indecently 
curious if I ask you about your
experiences with large lilypond projects (if 10-page piece can be regarded as 
"large") and your
hardware? 

In this point I want to defend Upro, who started this thread. This man wants to 
typeset
some bigger thing, but he doesn't want to fail due to technical problems. And 
probably
these masterpieces of Leipzig Cantor will be typeset with Sibelius. I agree 
that typing
lilypond code in is much faster than doing so with (eg.) Sibelius, I agree that 
result of
raw processing with lilypond is much better. 

One must be very naive to believe that everything can be coded as 
program/algorithm.  But
when it comes to fine tuning the score it becomes real pain. Most things are 
done with
trial&error method, which consumes (depending on score of course) lots of time. 
With mouse
it takes seconds to drag'n'drop such elements. What about hard to achieve marks 
as
double-glissando on violin? To complain more: convert-ly simply doesn't work 
for me. So
all my old projects have to be rewritten line by line. Of course some dirty 
hacks (someone
before mention them?) have to be changed usually to some other ones (like 
controlled
aleatorism notation, modifying stencils with scheme). There was pointed 
somewhere analogy
to TeX/LaTeX. But I can process latex files from eighties of last century, but 
cannot my
last year lilypond work.

In my case this would be very optimistic variant. That is my choice to use 
Lilypond.  I
agee with limitations. I very often supplement printed scores with black pen 
(mentioned
above double-glissandoes, lastly harp part -- all this graphical stuff).  But I 
don't want
to be limited to 5-page scores.

Upro, and I, and anyone who professionally deal with music, esp. making visual
representation of her, in a long run needs reliable environment. 

But to stop this nonconstructive criticism I must admit I found LP very handy 
and useful
when I was making short excerpts of larger pieces for embedding in book (theory 
of music,
400p.). Using Finale/Sibelius/who-knows-what-else I had would kill my self. 
Certainly.

best,
ak

Ps.sorry for my english -- as I've never been in UK/USA I know it only 
theoretically.