Erik - Thanks for contributing to this thread. It is attempting to deal with an important unresolved issue: seamless evolutionary transitioning of ly files.
Your suggested solution requires "n" versions residing entirely in the user's machine, which would, as you point out, increase resident code by a factor of "n". The code switching option requires parallel code only for features that are interpreted differently for different versions, only marginally increasing the size of the newer versions - far less size, and hassle, than retaining several versions. Marginally increasing the single package size is not a concern. Through the generations, memory and speed have increased to accommodate applications - or maybe the other way around. The first computer I used had 2000 bi-quinary ten-digit words on a drum. Long-term memory was punched cards. It was a fantastic improvement over its predecessor, the Card Programmed Calculator. Increasing processing time is a consideration, but testing a flag to select from version-specific code segments would be barely measurable. - Bruce -----Original Message----- From: Erik Sandberg [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 10, 2006 3:12 AM To: Fairchild Cc: lilypond-user@gnu.org Subject: Re: Evolutionary User Strategery On 7/9/06, Fairchild <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > New scores could use new features and not have to work around the bugs > of earlier versions. Older scores that have been carefully tuned, > compensating for earlier bugs, would continue to produce the intended > result without having to be overhauled. There would be no need to > maintain multiple versions. This basically implies that all old versions of lily must be included in the new versions, so e.g. lilypond 2.10 will contain both version 2.10, 2.8, 2.6 and 2.4. Which means that the lilypond package grows by a factor 4. I think a better solution would be that you create a script locally, which parses the input ly file, reads the \version statement, and picks which lilypond version to use to compile your ly file. Erik _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list lilypond-user@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user