Re: Trying to Convert MIDI to Lilypond

[David Kastrup]

Graham Percival <address@hidden> writes:

> On Sun, Dec 25, 2016 at 09:58:39AM +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
>> This is the only file in the whole LilyPond distribution that needs a C
>> compiler to compile.  It also makes for a whole lot of trouble.  What it
>> does can likely be rewritten in Python without much of a performance
>> impact for the application as a whole.
>
> I completely entirely agree with the rewrite, but I'm curious
> about why a C compiler causes problems, compared to the C++
> compiler required for the main lilypond binary?

Overkill.  Midi2ly is a single little utility.  Keeping GCC operative
for midi2ly is just not the same priority as keeping G++ operative for
LilyPond.

But the actual problem is more that of making sure that midi2ly.py is
able to find and execute the midi.lo (or whatever it is called) library
and that it has the right kind of interface and architecture.

This is what is currently causing the trouble.  We'll likely still need
GCC for the bootstrapping so my above argument is a bit flaky.  But it's
the only time we need a C compiler _natively_ in the build procedure, so
there is some complexity associated with the respective build recipes.

-- 
David Kastrup