Re: I did not previously realize that Lilypond would automatically update pre-existing scores

[Valentin Petzel]

Hi Kenneth, hi all,

Lilypond is both a program and a music language. So we have two versions, the 
program version and the language version. Using a lower program version on a 
higher language version does issue a warning and will potentially fail. Using 
a higher program version on a lower language version will not issue a warning, 
but still potentially fail. I do think that even in this case Lilypond should 
issue a warning.

The silent implication here is that the language is only extended, but never 
changed. Thus if the language version is more recent than the program it might 
be that it uses a feature that the program does not have at this point, but if 
the language version is older than the program version it is assumed that the 
program can handle the old language version.

This is of course totally not true: We often see renaming of functions and 
Grobs, changes in behaviour of e.g. some engravers which also occasionally 
means that the language has to change and such.

I think in stable it is reasonable to assume that the language does not change 
much due to minor updates. On devel the language is expected to change, and 
between major versions I think we should expect the possibility of 
incompatibility.

Cheers,
Valentin

Am Samstag, 18. Februar 2023, 09:02:39 CET schrieb Kenneth Wolcott:
> I have some LIlypond code (from someone on the list) which is at
> Lilypond version:
> 
> grep version ./only_even_bars.ly
> \version "2.22.0"
> 
> ~/Downloads/lilypond-2.24.1/bin/lilypond ./only_even_bars.ly
> GNU LilyPond 2.24.1 (running Guile 2.2)
> Processing `./only_even_bars.ly'
> Parsing...
> Interpreting music...[8]
> Preprocessing graphical objects...
> Finding the ideal number of pages...
> Fitting music on 1 page...
> Drawing systems...
> Converting to `only_even_bars.pdf'...
> Success: compilation successfully completed
> 
> No big fat warning.
> 
> ~/Downloads/lilypond-2.24.1/bin/lilypond --version
> GNU LilyPond 2.24.1 (running Guile 2.2)
> 
> The resultant pdf is at Lilypond version 2.24.1 (attached).
> 
> Hmmm...
> 
> Ken
> 
> On Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 11:52 PM Werner LEMBERG <wl@gnu.org> wrote:
> > > Well, that’s what you get if the LilyPond version is too old. The
> > > question was for a version that is “too new”.
> > 
> > D'oh, right :-)
> > 
> >     Werner

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