Re: Quit [now definitely O/T]

[Tim McNamara]

Sorry, I initially just sent this to Jan and meant to send it to the  
group.

On Nov 12, 2009, at 2:11 AM, Jan Nieuwenhuizen wrote:


> Op donderdag 12-11-2009 om 08:41 uur [tijdzone +0100], schreef David
> Kastrup:
>
> > Carl Sorensen <address@hidden> writes:
>
>
> > _Addressing_ the actual problems is definitely more suitably done  
> > on the
> > developer list.
>
> So what are the actual problems?  Is LilyPond really too difficult?

Well, in a word, yes.  OK, that's too glib because the second  
question is "too difficult for what" and that wasn't asked.  It's too  
difficult (as in the learning curve is too steep and seems  
practically infinite) for the majority of casual users who will give  
it a try.  You do have to look at it through naive eyes to see that  
the start of the learning curve is like standing at the base of  
Monolith when all one wanted was to go for a little hike.

I have mastered LilyPond just enough to do the simple jazz lead  
sheets I need (and am not quite there yet- I get flummoxed by  
something on every other score).  I've tried to interest a lot of  
fellow jazz musicians (some of them college professors, high powered  
professionals and some pro musicians, all of them quite intelligent)  
and to a person they threw up their hands within minutes.  I know one  
other jazz musician who uses LilyPond, the rest use Finale (or just  
do charts by hand).  Once one has to resort to hacks to get stuff  
done, it becomes a brute-force approach which is beyond the interest  
of (IMHO) the vast majority of users.


> Do we rely too much on crufty input-language solutions?

It happens pretty quickly on pretty simple charts that one has to use  
overrides and the like to get glyphs to position correctly, which  
means that new users are likely very frustrated with output issues  
(e.g., "why is the coda glyph appearing there when I put it here?").   
It makes for inelegant code in the .ly file and a greater likelihood  
of the input being broken with each upgrade, causing trouble and  
frustration for the user.

There does not have to be a GUI to make it simple and easy to use.   
Text input is fine, it just has to have a clear, consistent and  
predictable input syntax which makes it simple to position notes,  
rests, bars, text, lyrics, glyphs and structural things like  
repeats.  It's almost there, but having to read hundreds of pages of  
arcane documentation to produce a one page lead sheet remains  
problematic.


> How many ritardando-like hacks do we have for common problems?  Are  
> they listed/categorised somewhere?

Much of the LSR contains such hacks.  Isn't that what it's for?  It  
seems to me that there are hundreds of hacks in the LSR to make  
LilyPond do something that the standard markup language cannot do, or  
at least can't do readily.

Now, don't get me wrong.  LilyPond produces better looking sheet  
music than anything else I have seen.  It's amazingly powerful and  
can do a gigantic variety of things, which is both a strength and its  
Achilles' heel.  But it's also like Emacs using LaTeX in its  
complexity and power while most potential users are just looking for  
NotePad.

One question is how LilyPond positions itself in the market.  As it  
currently stands, it is not for the average user.  It is an  
application squarely aimed at power users who enjoy the problem- 
solving aspect of dealing with using two different languages  
simultaneously (LilyPond's LaTeX-like markup language and Scheme) and  
don't mind the challenge of making the application produce the output  
you want.  It is not for the musician who just wants a chart with a  
minimum of fuss and time.  There's nothing wrong with that, other  
than that the former market is small and the latter market is large-  
and there's nothing wrong with that either.  The market for a Lexus  
LFA is small, the market for a Toyota Corolla is large.  If LilyPond  
is intended to be a Lexus, then things are pretty fine.  If it is  
intended to be a Corolla, then there is a lot of fundamental work to  
be done on the user-friendliness of the markup language.

People often get mad when things like this are said because it seems  
to negate the hundreds or thousands of hours they put into  
development.  I certainly do not mean to do that and hope that no one  
takes it that way.  As I said earlier, LilyPond is an amazingly  
powerful program.  But that power may mean that it has a limited  
market appeal.  NotePad has probably three orders of magnitude more  
users than Emacs for the same reasons- relatively few users need the  
power and flexibility of Emacs because they just want to write a  
quick note to Aunt Martha.  There is nothing wrong with that.  It may  
very well be that trying to cater to casual users who just want to  
make a simple score or a rock tune or a folk song or something like  
that is not realistic for LilyPond.  Nothing wrong with that either.   
It's a badass powerful music engraving application, after all.