Re: anyone got lilypond 2.16.2 to work on Windows Vista?

[David Rogers]

Robert Honoré <address@hidden> writes:

> It usually does once I change the version string. I had sent the one
> that worked with my previous installation of lilypond (2.12.3).
> Usually, when I do an upgrade, I would change the version string once I
> get the error message when I attempt to process it.
> That is usually the first hint I get that the syntax I have in my old
> *.ly files might need to be checked.
>
> The file I sent (serial-1.ly) is my test file.  It has only one line of
> random music, so that it serves as the subject of a quick test.  My
> current problem is that I can't even get lilypond to go to the point
> where it tells me that the file was found and it has begun processing,
> far less to tell me that the version string is too old (see my previous
> post with the command line session log).  If I could get lilypond to
> tell me that, I would consider it progress.


Robert: It seems to me that you are working very hard to outsmart
Lilypond, doing tricks that "should theoretically work if..." some
particular obscure unreliable condition is met.

At the risk of sounding dismissive, I'll say: why not just read the
manual and follow the instructions? They work quite well as printed -
there's no need to resort to "extracurricular tricks" to make sure
Lilypond is working.

One bad part about Lilypond is that you do have to follow the
instructions and intentions of the people who programmed it. When they
say "do it this way", there is nearly always the implication
"... because no other way will work", or at least "no other way gives
any guarantee". Another bad part is simply that Lilypond is quite a
large collection of code; unless you wrote a large chunk of that code
yourself, it's safe to assume that you don't know how it ought to work
except by being told - either by those who *have* written large chunks
of it, or by those who use it on a daily basis and have become very
familiar with it.

Occasionally things do change - make sure you're reading the manuals and
instructions for the Lilypond version you're really using, and not
simply hoping that outdated methods will still (by chance) work.


-- 
David R