Re: Supporting my work on LilyPond financially

[David Kastrup]

Kieren MacMillan <address@hidden> writes:

>> I think it hasn't been stressed enough yet that the text input by
>> itself is a huge hurdle. I mean, not the syntax but the plain fact.
>
> Amen.
>
>> If you're looking at a real-world score's input file it's
>> overwhelmingly daunting.
>
> …even for me, and I’m one of Lily’s biggest users in terms of number
> and size and “real-ness” of scores.

Well, we'll probably need some open discussion of common problems and
imaginary input that would make it considerably easier for people to
overcome them.

I'm not primarily interested in syntactic sugar here (though the
\override Context.Grob.property thingy is at least a friendly gesture
towards the user), but structural things.  LilyPond's rigid voicing is
not fun for entering piano music, particularly where comparatively free
stemming and slurring and beaming and staff crossing come into play.
That's one point I feel embarrassed about and am planning to improve one
day.

> Here’s my experience:
> 1. I've tried to convince at least a dozen people — all of whom are of
> high intelligence (though none “programmers”) — to try Lilypond.
> 2. Every single one has preferred (or at least claimed to prefer)
> Lilypond's output to that of the engraving software they use — most
> are on Sibelius; a few use Finale.
> 3. About half took the time to install Lilypond and compile a simple example 
> file.
> 4. To my knowledge, exactly one tried a second example.
>
> Result? Not a single successful convert to date.

I think Frescobaldi with its templates would likely be helpful.
Possibly also Denemo.  Staring at an empty canvas without any controls
is a bit disconcerting.  Basically you need to have a printout with the
basics at hand.  How many pages is our tutorial?

>> Most people I tried to persuade simply said "this isn't my cup of
>> tea, I'm not a programmer”.
>
> THAT is the main problem right there — one we are likely never to
> overcome, as much as I hate to admit it.

That's relative, like people who don't use Emacs as an editor.  Nowadays
some newcomers start using it and don't understand the fuzz from
oldtimers who said they never managed getting along with it.

The basic problems for its workflow it have not changed all that much
over the last 20 years, so if you had thorough bad experiences with it,
you'll get reminded of them meeting it again.  But the degree to which
they hit you in the face has changed a lot.

In a similar vein, we won't change LilyPond's nature.  But there is a
lot one can do to make it appear less obnoxious, and possibly also
enable new workflows around it in connection with other tools.

-- 
David Kastrup