Re: Is it time to update the Finale 2008 sample in Essay?

[Jean Abou Samra]

Le lundi 20 mars 2023 à 10:26 -0600, Abraham Lee a écrit :
> Thanks, Jean, for doing that. I was hoping for a more public discussion to 
> see if creating an issue is even warranted. The essay is a historical 
> document, to be sure, so updating the comparison files might not be needed at 
> all. It just feels a bit odd to read "we have chosen Finale 2008, which is 
> one of the most popular commercial score writers". This was absolutely 
> true... once upon a time. Reading it now makes it sound like we had to dig 
> waaaaaaaaay back in order to pretend to make it seem like Finale isn't good 
> enough and that LilyPond does it right. How does Finale/Sibelius/Dorico/etc. 
> do nowadays? Do they get it right now? I'm certain folks have asked this 
> question. 
> 
> For comparison, I just entered the two systems in the essay into MuseScore 4 
> and got a practically perfect output. Entering one voice at a time (voice 1, 
> then voice 2), all existing pitches were maintained in voice 1 despite making 
> alterations in voice 2 (like that omitted flat that Finale 2008 leaves out). 
> I didn't have to correct or add anything that was missing. Maybe I just got 
> lucky because of how I entered the passage. Arguments can be made about other 
> layout decisions, but I think it's hard to argue against what MS4 has done 
> compared to the hand-engraved examples:
> 
> 
> 
> So, maybe all that's needed is a different wording in this section to reflect 
> why *at the time* this comparison made sense (like what is described at the 
> beginning of the essay)? That would certainly be simpler than recreating the 
> comparison (which might not come to the original conclusion like it used to).


LilyPond too has evolved a lot in 15 years. You could take a more complex 
example than this relatively simple (in terms of notation) Bach excerpt, and 
re-do the comparison. I'm not sure Finale/Sibelius/Dorico/MuseScore would use 
skylines for spacing objects as opposed to simple boxes.

I read that a while ago, Urs Liska organized a "music engraving contest" where 
scores were compared in different score writers, probably for the scores of 
beauty blog. That blog is now defunct, but you could try to dig into the list 
archives. It's old, but not 15 years old, and the chosen samples could be 
recompared today.

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