Hi Kieren,
On Jan 3, 2008, at 12:39 PM, Kieren MacMillan wrote:
I have easily spent 10 times the amount of time studying Lilypond
and understand only 1/10th of what I can do in LaTeX.
This may be because LaTeX includes *significantly* more (and more
complex) macros which sit on top of (Plain) TeX -- i.e., you don't
have to "hand-code" as much in LaTeX as you do in Lilypond.
I *understand* LaTeX; I am *baffled* by Lilypond.
Yes, but you're comparing apples to oranges in a way...
You should compare a Lilypond file to a (Plain) TeX file where you
need to define your own stylesheet -- I think you'd find that Lilypond
compares (more) favourably there.
Thank you for this comparison. Yes! I want the LaTeX equivalent in
Lilypond. LaTeX stills permits a great deal of tweaking within a
structure.
This is not to say that Lilypond shouldn't be easier (the way LaTeX is
*MUCH* easier than Plain TeX).
I'm just pointing out that LaTeX is much more "mature" that way.
I imagine you might be in the same situation if you needed to edit a
real (low-level) TeX stylesheet file, e.g.
\def\plaincases#1{\left\{\,\vcenter{\normalbaselines
\mathsurround=0pt\relax
\ialign{$##\hfil$&\quad##\hfil\crcr#1\crcr}}\right.}
\def\plainmatrix#1{\null\,\vcenter{\normalbaselines\mathsurround=0pt\re
lax
\ialign{\hfil$##$\hfil&&\quad\hfil$##$\hfil\crcr
\mathstrut\crcr\noalign{\kern-\baselineskip}
#1\crcr\mathstrut\crcr\noalign{\kern-\baselineskip}}}\,}
\def\pplainmatrix#1{\left(\plainmatrix{#1}\right)}
\let\plainpmatrix\pplainmatrix
The benefit of LaTeX, coupled with whatever documentclass and packages
you use, is that you don't NEED to access the code at that level.
Lilypond just doesn't have those abstracted stylesheets.
Yikes! This is exactly what I spend time doing in Lilypond which I want
to reduce. And, I am very glad that I don't have to resort to this
level of coding in LaTeX.
Today I found an example of Lilypond coding which illustrates my
bafflement in Lilypond which goes beyond the TeX/LaTeX comparison.
I wanted to fill-out a two page orchestral part and Lilypond insisted
on filling only 1.7 pages leaving several inches blank on page 2. (You
may have already reviewed my comments in another thread.) I treated my
"problem" as a vertical spacing problem. Consulting the Lilypond manual
I was directed to section 5.5.1
(http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.11/Documentation/user/lilypond/Vertical-
spacing-inside-a-system#Vertical-spacing-inside-a-system) which
suggested code like \override VerticalAlignment #'max-stretch =
#ly:align-interface::calc-max-stretch inside a Score context. Nothing I
tried solved my "problem." After posting to the user's group, I got
several replies along the line of
ragged-last-bottom = ##f
raggedbottom = ##f
raggedbottomlast = ##f
Here's where I get baffled. (A priori) I don't know that these settings
exist and when I search on vertical spacing (within a system) in the
documentation, I am not directed to these settings. I certainly do
understand why these settings are relevant and why setting the desired
value solves my problem. It is just not easy to find the appropriate
settings in the documentation. This kind of problem is very typical for
me. (Perhaps it is the way I think?)
Cheerios,
Jeremiah
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