Re: A problem with lilypond

[Francisco Vila]

2011/10/20 Martin Tarenskeen <address@hidden>:
> On Thu, 20 Oct 2011, Francisco Vila wrote:
>> 2011/10/19  <address@hidden>:
>>> I were wondering if there is someway to fill the code and at same time
>>> generating the score for me to see what I am writting?
>> When I am typing music with Frescobaldi, I usually type a measure at a
>> time and press CTLR-M immediately, then I continue typing without
>> waiting for LilyPond to finish.
>> Sure, that puts the CPU in heavy load, but only for the period I am
>> transcribing intensively.

> I have tried different text-to-score music typesetting systems (mup,
> abcm2ps, pmw, and lilypond). Lilypond has become my first choice because of
> flexibility and quality of output. But compared to the other ones, speed is
> not it's strongest point. It is I think the flexibility (=complexity) in
> combination with the Scheme interpreted language that makes it slow. The
> competitors I mention are all 100% hardcoded compiled C programs. Lilypond
> is "easier" to tweak by the end-user thanks to the Scheme language.
>
> The trick address@hidden is asking for is possible with for example
> EasyABC, using abcm2ps, and it works pretty good for small to medium sized
> scores.
>
> But to end positively: today's fast computers make it already much easier to
> live with Lilypond's slowness.

I think that LilyPond is not especially slow considering what it does:
it does not limit itself to stroke your commands on a paper.  It
performs a beauty contest in search of optimal layouts given a bunch
of typesetting rules and restraints.  That way you can firstly
concentrate on music until you decide that you want this or that
forced layout.

-- 
Francisco Vila. Badajoz (Spain)
www.paconet.org , www.csmbadajoz.com