Re: Discussion: automatic engraving and single-source publishing

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling]

On 26/11/13 11:01, David Kastrup wrote:
> Sure.  For that reason, I consider much of the time spent on tweaking
> and tweaking tools a waste of lifetime better spent on trying to get the
> automatisms right.  Of course, that option is harder and requires
> different resources.  But it only needs to be done once.

I don't think it's helpful to see these things in opposition.  Virtually all 
practical engraving scenarios involve needing to make _some_ tweaks -- any 
difficulty in doing so is a block to the usability of Lilypond and hence a block 
to growing the user base.  A growing user base corresponds to a much broader 
range of engraving scenarios and hence feedback that helps drive automation.

Put it another way: your ability to automate is always limited by your ability 
to grasp the range of user requirements and to implement solutions for them.  It 
makes you the bottleneck.  Facilitating users' ability to easily customize 
everything by contrast frees them from the limits of your own vision and time 
constraints.

In one aspect of this, Lilypond is already one of the best tools, because it 
liberates the user so very greatly.  But in terms of the _ease_ of enjoying that 
freedom, it's far too limited, particularly when it comes to "trivial" tweaks.

I think that you personally are quite right to focus your efforts on automation, 
but it doesn't mean that the efforts to build friendly tweaking tools are a 
waste of time or resources ill-spent.