+@comment @c -*-texinfo-*-
+
@node Preface
-@chapter Preface
+@unnumbered Preface
+
+@menu
+* Preface to version 2.0::
+* Preface to version 1.8::
+* Preface to version 1.6::
+@end menu
+
+
+@node Preface to version 2.0
+@unnumberedsec Preface to version 2.0
+
+
+Due to personal circumstances, Han-Wen was able to do a lot more on
+LilyPond during the past months. A testament to that is the quick
+release of version 2.0, less than two months after 1.8. We have taken
+the opportunity to make a few radical changes to the syntax: note
+attributes, like articulation, dynamics and fingerings are now
+post-fix exclusively. This makes entering scores easier: you never
+have to think about the order of the attributes. With version 2.0, we
+have a new and improved platform for working on notation and
+typography features for coming versions,
+
+Due to other personal circumstances, Jan was not able to do more than
+packaging for Cygwin. The good news is that we now have a nearly
+fool-proof installation for Windows. He will be back in 2.1.
+
+
+Han-Wen and Jan
+
+Utrecht/Eindhoven, The Netherlands, September 2003.
+@node Preface to version 1.8
+@unnumberedsec Preface to version 1.8
+
+If you are familiar with LilyPond version 1.6, then version 1.8 will
+no offer no big surprises. The only conspicuous change is in the way
+that formatted text is entered. There is now a new syntax that is more
+friendly, more versatile and extensible. We hope you like it. In
+general, development on version 1.8 has been focused on improving the
+design of various internal mechanisms. This includes chord name
+formatting and entry code, music expression storage, and integration
+between LilyPond and Scheme. These changes may not be evident
+directly, but they make the program more robust and more flexible,
+which translates into fewer bugs and more adjustment options.
+
+Special thanks for version 1.8 go out to Juergen Reuter for lots of
+work on the ancient notation engine, and to Amy Zapf for pushing us to
+rewrite the chord name support.
+
+@c TODO [wie meer?]
+
+Han-Wen and Jan,
+
+Utrecht/Eindhoven, The Netherlands, April/May 2003.
+
+@node Preface to version 1.6
+@unnumberedsec Preface to version 1.6
It must have been during a rehearsal of the EJE (Eindhoven Youth
-Orchestra), somewhere in 1995 that Jan, one of the cranked violists told
-Han-Wen, one of the distorted french horn players, about the grand new
-project he was working on. It was an automated system for printing
-music (to be precise, it was MPP, a preprocessor for MusiXTeX). As it
-happened, Han-Wen accidentally wanted to print out some parts from a
-score, so he started looking at the software, and he quickly got hooked.
-It was soon decided that MPP was a dead end. After lots of
-philosophizing and heated e-mail exchanges Han-Wen started LilyPond in
-1996. This time, Jan got sucked into Han-Wen's new project. The rest
-is, as they say, history.
-
-[TODO some more here.]
-
-LilyPond would have been a far less useful program without the input
-of incountable number of individuals. We would like to thank all users
-that sent bugreports, gave suggestions or contributed code. We would
-especially like to thank the following people: Jean-Baptiste Lamy for
-providing Tablature support, Mats Bengtsson for the incountable newbie
-questions that he answered on the mailing list. Chris Jackson for
-various piano support code, Heikki Junes for taking care of the
-Emacs-mode, Glen Prideaux for implementing lyric-phrasing. Juergen
-Reuter for the ancient notation support, Rune Zedeler for many code
-improvements All translators that helped translate the error messages.
-Jeremie Lumbroso,
-
-@ignore
- should mention many more people, these are from AUTHORS
-@end ignore
+Orchestra), somewhere in 1995 that Jan, one of the cranked violists
+told Han-Wen, one of the distorted French horn players, about the
+grand new project he was working on. It was an automated system for
+printing music (to be precise, it was MPP, a preprocessor for
+MusiXTeX). As it happened, Han-Wen accidentally wanted to print out
+some parts from a score, so he started looking at the software, and he
+quickly got hooked. It was decided that MPP was a dead end. After
+lots of philosophizing and heated e-mail exchanges Han-Wen started
+LilyPond in 1996. This time, Jan got sucked into Han-Wen's new
+project.
+
+In some ways, developing a computer program is like learning to play
+an instrument. In the beginning, discovering how it works is fun, and
+the things you cannot do are challenging. After the initial excitement,
+you have to practice and practice. Scales and studies can be dull, and
+if you are not motivated by others---teachers, conductors or
+audience---it is very tempting to give up. You continue, and gradually
+playing becomes a part of your life. Some days it comes naturally, and
+it is wonderful, and on some days it just does not work, but you keep
+playing, day after day.
+
+Like making music, working on LilyPond is can be dull work, and on
+some days it feels like plodding through a morass of
+bugs. Nevertheless, it has become a part of our life, and we keep
+doing it. Probably the most important motivation is that our program
+actually does something useful for people. When we browse around the
+net we find many people that use LilyPond, and produce impressive
+pieces of sheet music. Seeing that still feels unreal, but in a very
+pleasant way.
+
+Our users not only give us good vibes by using our program, many of
+them also help us by giving suggestions and sending bugreports. So
+first and foremost, we would like to thank all users that sent us
+bugreports, gave suggestions or contributed in any other way to
+LilyPond.
+
+We would also like to thank the following people: Mats Bengtsson for
+the incountable number of questions he answered on the mailing list,
+and Rune Zedeler for his energy in finding and fixing bugs. Nicola
+Bernardini for inviting us to his workshop on music publishing, which
+was truly a masterclass, and Heinz Stolba and James Ingram for
+teaching us there.
+Playing and printing music is more than nice analogy. Programming
+together is a lot of fun, and helping people is deeply satisfying, but
+ultimately, working on LilyPond is a way to express our deep love for
+music. May it help you create lots of beautiful music!
Han-Wen and Jan
projects / lilypond.git / blobdiff