Re: Steinberg's progress report on new notation software

[Tim McNamara]

On Aug 8, 2013, at 5:06 AM, Jan-Peter Voigt <address@hidden> wrote:

> I'm not that surprised.
> During the last few years I became something nerd-like. After beeing a 
> Mac-User for a long time, I now only use Ubuntu or Debian and all its related 
> tools for my everyday work.
> So for me using lilypond is a quite natural thing and I am getting better and 
> quicker using emacs - well, frescobaldi is still my lilyeditor.
> But most people I talk to say something like: "I want switch on my computer 
> and immediatly work with my everyday tools without needing to touch the 
> keyboard! Beyond the mouse there is a touch-screen ..."
> To see, that one is giving away a lot of control over his own work that way, 
> is not a matter of course.

Difference in end-user philosophy.  

Most computer users do not see themselves giving away that control because they 
didn't need it or want it in the first place.  Linux distributions like Ubuntu, 
Debian, etc., are simply inappropriate tools for probably 98% of computer 
users- which is exactly why the market share of those OSes is what it is.  Most 
users need a hammer and a screwdriver- Linux is a whole machine shop.  For the 
people who need the machine shop, Linux is the thing they want.  Most people 
want to use their computer like they use a refrigerator or a toaster:  just use 
it, no reading of documentation necessary.

I write 40 pages of reports a day for work.  I don't use LaTeX because it's too 
complicated to use; I use LibreOffice because the default operation for text is 
fine.  If I was writing out complex math equations, it'd be a different story.

Similarly LilyPond is probably not the most appropriate tool for most people 
just looking to print out some chord charts for their coffee house open mic 
night.  I don't think that it's presented as the tool for those folks- LilyPond 
is aimed at the people who want that fine-grained control over output (although 
for people like me, writing lead sheets for jazz combos, the default ways of 
doing things works well for almost everything and only a few tweaks are 
necessary.  A few minutes and I've got charts for everyone that are vastly more 
readable than Real Book charts).  I find it faster than MuseScore, which I also 
tried, and the output is vastly better than Finale.

I don't really know who Steinberg's target market is, although it looks like it 
is more towards the LilyPond end of things.