Re: Salzburg conference attendance?

[David Kastrup]

Han-Wen Nienhuys <address@hidden> writes:

> Hey folks,
>
> I'll be at the Salzburg music engraving event. I was wondering if
> there is anything regarding LilyPond that you want my input on. If so,
> I can prepare something.

I am a bit late to the game, but it's likely more of a longterm concern
where it's a good idea to have something eventually for the CG: the
LilyPond backend, basically line/page-breaking and positioning, is
basically undocumented.  Removing "simple closures" and replacing them
with "unpure/pure containers" has reduced the number of unknowns, but
for the general design there is little knowledge and little experience.
That puts a high hurdle to

a) adding new elements to LilyPond's typesetting
b) improve typesetting results without unforeseen consequences
c) make it possible to create custom layouts and page designs, like TeX
permits by having the "output routine" that assembles material collected
for filling a page something that the user can write by himself and then
"shipout" rather than having everything hardwired in C++.

This is definitely something that will end up a maintenance bottleneck
for whatever developers and applications LilyPond is going to see in
future.

-- 
David Kastrup