Re: lilypond too noisy on the cmd line

[David Kastrup]

Mark Veltzer <address@hidden> writes:

> First is first: thanks for a great piece of software.
>
> This is a long standing feature request for me which you probably got from
> hundreds of other users but I sent it anyway since I see it as a major pain.
>
> When I run lilypond it is too noisy. It prints out lots of stuff (version,
> progress and more) to standard error. This has several problems:
>
> - It does not allow me to differentiate between good messages and
> bad. The basic
> idea of standard output and error was to enable such a distinction.

No.  The basic idea is that standard output contains output for further
processing stages, while standard error contains diagnostic output
intended for human consumption.

> Suggestions:
> - version, progress and general messages which are not error messages should 
> go
> to stdout and NOT stderr.

No, that is nonsense.

> - a --quiet flag should be added to shut down all of the regular
> messages which are not error messages (meaning those going to stdout).

Progress messages don't belong on any output as long as verbose output
has not explicitly been requested.

> - In the long run I suggest that --quiet become the default since that
> is how most compilers/translators behave (do their work quietly unless
> errors occur or verbose mode is requested).

The difference between "quiet" and normal mode should mostly be that
startup and finishing messages are omitted.

"quiet" is for the situation where any console output is an indication
of a problem.  The normal output should not be significantly more
verbose than that.  On a console not in quiet mode, a self-erasing
progress bar or status display that does not take any permanent space is
nice to have.

But all material that remains permanently on-screen (and scrolls off it)
should, apart from startup and finishing messages, be an indication of a
problem.  At least that's the usual stderr philosophy.

-- 
David Kastrup