Re: Survey: Large scores

[Valentin Villenave]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 7:55 PM, Urs Liska <address@hidden> wrote:
> Basically I'd be interested in an estimate if there are practical
> limitations where one would be better off skipping a commission because
> LilyPond would be at its limit.

I don’t think it’s likely to happen anytime soon. Many, many users
over the years have been dealing with massive scores, including some
fairly odd things which no piece of software other than LilyPond would
have been able to deal with:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2007-11/msg00474.html

My personal record so far is a 360-pages orchestral score in one
single \book{} block, involving a dozen ugly hacks and thousands of
invisible duplicated notes etc., and I encountered absolutely *no*
problem with regard to RAM, CPU or programming aspects; if anything,
LilyPond has become noticeably better in recent years (not
particularly faster even though rapidity has increased thanks to
improved hardware).

That being said, orchestral music is not what’s the most difficult to
engrave (even dual-voices staves remain somewhat simple overall, even
with unmetered contemporary notation, microtones, feathered beams
etc.). To me, complex keyboard music is probably the worst, when it
involves cross-staff polyphony, complex pedal and dynamic indications.
At any rate, when it comes to written music, no matter how complex or
sophisticated huge, I most certainly am not planning to use anything
else than LilyPond, ever. And especially not in favor of a non-free
program.

Regards,
Valentin.