Re: producing "archival" scores

[David Rogers]

On Sat, 7 Apr 2007 16:40:01 -0400, Jason Merrill wrote:

> Thanks for the interesting comments so far.  I want to refocus the
> discussion slightly.  I didn't mean to get into a discussion about the
> relative merits of lilypond as an entry tool, exactly, so take as a
> temporary supposition that I want to enter music in lilypond right
> now, but that at some future time, someone else wants to modify that
> music in a program other than lilypond.  How can I do something now to
> make that easiest?

Anything software-based is (in practical terms, whatever anybody says) going to 
require maintenance and constant updates in order to keep it usable. It will 
not "just be there" in the future for anyone to use, unless you keep working on 
it in the mean time. Systems will change, standards will change, unexpected 
things will happen. So: either keep working on it, or print it on paper and 
keep it on a bookshelf. THAT's how to really save trouble.

Once you ask "But which software might be slightly better to have in the 
future?", nobody can give a good answer, because too many assumptions are 
required. All of the software choices carry huge risks, when you compare them 
to keeping a physical human-readable archive.

David