On Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Steve Dunlop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > You don't get it. If you have an archive like Mutopia, where there are > thousands of files and dozens of contributors, and mixed dependencies on > versions, running conver-ly doesn't work. > > It doesn't work because two people working on the same file may not have > the same version of Lilypond. You can't get dozens of volunteer > contributors to upgrade to the latest version all at once every time a > new version comes out by snapping your fingers. > > It doesn't work because the same file may be included in two separate > projects which use different versions of Lilypond because they rely on > features and syntax much more difficult to fix than the example I cite. > In some cases one of the projects may be in a "freeze" where only minor > changes from proofreading are being admitted, and something major like a > Lilypond upgrade would be problematic because the whole project would > have to be re-proofread to be sure things like spacing weren't adversely > affected. > > It doesn't work because the person who needs the change may not be the > maintainer of the file, and the maintainer of the file may have other > things to do besides run convert-ly on some old project. > > Unless all you ever want Lilypond to be is a program used by individuals > typesetting a handful of their favorite works, rather than, say, the > lingua Franca of the open content classical music movement.
I mentioned convert-ly because this *is* LilyPond's method of providing (partial) backwards compatibility. There is a trade-off involved: 1) Provide complete backwards compatibility, but sacrifice program efficiency/speed and retain tons of deprecated code 2) Provide partial backwards compatibility, and retain program efficiency/speed Since changes to syntax/structure are typically improvements and are *forward* looking, there isn't as much interest in the way LilyPond *used to be*. You do raise a lot of interesting points though. I'm not the best person to address these concerns though. -Patrick _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list lilypond-user@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user
