Re: Serious feedback and improvement headroom

[David Kastrup]

Urs Liska <address@hidden> writes:

> That's a difficult issue, and I think you both (Janek and David) are
> completely right with what you write.
>
> Nevertheless I think that trying to improve usability _now_ _is_ a
> good thing.
>
> A user of a (notation) software usually needs to finish stuff for a
> concrete purpose. An engraver will probably need to finish a score for
> being printed. And he needs to do that "now". Telling him "we could
> make it easier for you, but that will make your scores less flexible
> regarding future development of LilyPond" sounds completely ridiculous
> from the user's perspective.

I want to be able to draw up some score of mine in ten years and print
new versions of it using the version of LilyPond I'll be using then.
I've done a mediocre job of ensuring that regarding the stability of
LilyPond's syntax, but a pretty good job regarding convert-ly to mop
after any changes.

That's what's important to me.  At the current point of time, this may
well imply scores below publishing quality.  But it is a rare case when
they are not playable.

> It's similar with visual feedback. Telling someone that we don't help
> with getting visual feedback for ideological reasons ("we provide a
> text based workflow which we consider superior, so please respect that
> and stick to text - otherwise got back to Finale") doesn't make any
> sense to me.

It's a strawman anyway.  That I can only manage a finite workload is not
a matter of ideology.

> There are undisputable advantages in text based workflows, but these
> don't have anything to do with whether the user wants or needs visual
> feedback for his work.

At any rate, there is no use in trying to tell me what I should be doing
since I am not good at doing things I am not interested in anyway.
A good part of my work is making it easier for others to do what they
want.  It's up to them how they make use of that.

-- 
David Kastrup