Re: Migrating from commercial music notation software to free alternative

[mskala]

On Wed, 12 Jun 2019, David Kastrup wrote:
> > nor conceptually TeX-like, despite the fact that it uses backslashes.
>
> It's a batch processing system with plain text input syntax.  That makes
> for workflows not unaccustomed to LaTeX users.  By the way, it did

LaTeX users are accustomed to writing macros in a Turing-complete language
with, for instance, if statements.  LilyPond has no equivalent concept to
TeX macros:  variable values in LilyPond are data, not code, and are
completely evaluated when parsed and assigned.  They always do exactly the
same thing every time subsequently invoked, and cannot contain real
conditionals or parameterized behaviour.  All the programming-language
functionality in LilyPond is shifted into "music functions" that can be
applied to the dead data, but never used inline if they are to retain
their programmable behaviour.  Complete evaluation at parse time makes
programming a much different experience, and not one likely to be familiar
to a TeX or LaTeX user.

-- 
Matthew Skala
address@hidden                 People before tribes.
https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/