RE: Proposed CG agenda changes

Greetings,

(Sending this a second time because the first transmission apparently didn’t work. I've added quite a few new remarks too.)

We strongly support the proposed agenda. The short-term goals are good and it would be great to see them incorporated in a v3.1.

Concerning the long term:
--Better formatting support is crucial; and tricky/controversial, as reflected in the exchanges on this list. It's really hard to reduce music to "just the data" and put its visual expression into a separate "wrapper"; so all sorts of choices have to be made depending on context/end-use/compatibility.
--However even today, the XML produced by (e.g.) Sibelius comes short of employing the existing, limited formatting support, so there’s also a need to encourage the vendors. We will try to do our part in this regard.
--I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know that MusicXML doesn’t currently support DOM manipulation, and I’m glad you mentioned it in the proposed agenda because I was about to launch into such an attempt. Support for DOM would be much better than the more basic XML string-manipulation tools we’re relying on now.

In response to a current debate here, we would be supportive of major changes even if they break existing code. Preferably this would be in one big round of innovation between V3.1 and V4 -- rather than a trickle of script-breaking changes lasting for years. (Full disclosure: part of our company's income is derived from translating stuff from old formats to new formats, or even from current formats to better versions of the same formats. So in a sense, we have an interest in disruption....).

Is there going to be a W3C/Notation meeting at NAMM in January?

To the co-chairs, thank you for your efforts. They are much appreciated and we look forward to continuous progress in the future.

Martin Marris
Notecraft Services LLC, Boston
Music engraving & file conversion

Received on Tuesday, 10 November 2015 15:09:41 UTC