Re: Convert-ly crashes

[Laura Conrad]

I'm moving this to lilypond-user, since it no longer has anything to
do with the particular bug that started the thread.

>>>>> "Graham" == Graham Percival <address@hidden> writes:

    Graham> Laura Conrad wrote:
    >>>>>>> "Graham" == Graham Percival <address@hidden> writes:
    >> 
    Graham> I puzzled over what priority to give this -- I mean, who's
    Graham> going to be converting things that old
    >> 
    >> Most of us who were using lilypond that long ago.

    Graham> Huh.  I was going to make some kind of comment like
    Graham> "... but surely people update their files at least every
    Graham> three years", but I just discovered 10 of my scores with
    Graham> \version "2.0.1".  And I discovered another 30 scores that
    Graham> were definitely written before 2.0.1, but don't have any
    Graham> \version strings at all.  My my, I was such a naughty boy.
    Graham> :)

I think this might be worth discussing on the users' list.  The
contributors are probably all making some assumptions about people's
work habits that doubtless hold true for only some of the population.
So here's the question: What are your actual and theoretical work
habits with respect to using convert-ly and \version strings?

In my case, I transcribe two or three pieces a week for my group that
meets on Tuesdays.  If the piece is out of copyright (most of what I
do), it usually gets uploaded to my website within a few weeks of
transcription.  The lilypond gets updated only if I use it again and
find I really need a new feature or I'm really being annoyed by the
"old fashioned" spacing algorithm, or if someone finds an error.

The situation is a little different for things that are part of a
major project, like the Dowland and Morley books, or the drinking
songs compilation.  In that case, the whole project has to be updated
whenever I add or change anything, since lilypond-book needs to have
everything in the same lilypond version.  The Dowland project is
particularly demanding that way, since there are over a hundred pieces,
each with 2-5 parts, and each part has an incipit using some of the
ancient notation.  It would not have made the jump from 2.0.1 to 2.8,
which required a lot of manual intervention, without a lot of help
from Warren Stickney, one of the users of my web site.

In any case, I find that I have to look at things (or even better have
my group look at them) when I update them, so I've never even
considered a routine updating of all the hundreds of pieces at once.

In theory, I think having version strings in every piece is a good
idea.  In practice, I don't find there's a problem with using
convert-ly with an older version than is actually needed.  My older
stuff was almost all entered in ABC and converted with abc2ly, which
didn't used to insert a version string, but did put in a comment with
the abc2ly version.  My current practice is to use templates for
entering the lilypond. The templates have a version string, but it
isn't always updated every time I update lilypond.  So I often find I
have to give convert-ly an explicit version, but so far that hasn't
been a terrible problem.

-- 
Laura (mailto:address@hidden , http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097  fax: (501) 641-5011
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139