RE: [xml-dev] RE: The limits of XML mean the limits of my data world

[<list.mu@c-moria.com>]

I tend to second that.
I have quite a few friends, professional musicians and they all write their compositions in either Sibelius [1] or MuseScore [2], both similar to Finale, referenced by Gerrit
I play in a small ensemble myself and the director does the compositions for all instruments using Sibelius.
"Pass me the XML" has become a common phrase for exchanging the scores, none of my fellow musicians have a clue what XML is, but it works fairly well for import in the open source tools that us amateurs use. 
It also helps if you want to read the scores from an iPad, which is very common these days
MusicXML has become very popular, although not many bother to look inside the XML files.
I admit that I was not telling my fellow ensemble members for years that XML was actually used for more than exchanging music scores.... and that I was working with XML on a daily basis. It turned out to be quite a surprise when I finally did 😊

Best regards,
Geert

[1] https://www.avid.com/sibelius
[2] https://musescore.org/nl

-----Original Message-----
From: Imsieke, Gerrit, le-tex <gerrit.imsieke@le-tex.de> 
Sent: Monday, 30 May 2022 21:05
To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: Re: [xml-dev] RE: The limits of XML mean the limits of my data world

A friend of mine, a pianist, arranger and composer who also teaches music at Leipzig's academy of music and theater, writes his compositions in Finale [1] and exchanges them with other people as MusicXML. MusicXML supports overlapping staff groups, as can be seen in example 41f-StaffGroups-Overlapping.xml on [2]. MusicXML's slurs are "composed" 
of milestone elements, as can be seen in [3], adopting a popular method to represent overlap in XML.

I don't have statistics about how many contemporary composers write music conventionally on sheets or electronically with Finale etc., but I guess that most of them use software nowadays. And this software more likely than not has XML as an exchange or even as a native storage format. And that XML interchange format is able to represent overlap.

Gerrit

[1] https://www.finalemusic.com/products/finale/
[2]
https://web.mit.edu/music21/doc/developerReference/musicxmlTest.html#multiple-parts-staves
[3]
https://www.w3.org/2021/06/musicxml40/musicxml-reference/examples/slur-element/



On 30.05.2022 20:29, Dimitre Novatchev wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sun, May 29, 2022 at 11:13 PM Imsieke, Gerrit, le-tex 
> <gerrit.imsieke@le-tex.de <mailto:gerrit.imsieke@le-tex.de>> wrote:
> 
>     You can express or represent (I regard both terms as synonymous wrt the
>     current discussion) such an overlap in XML, see for example how the
>     Common Music Notation handles overlap in beams or slurs (search for
>     "overlap" on [1]). It's just that you cannot express it using
>     overlapping elements.
> 
>     [1] https://music-encoding.org/guidelines/v4/content/cmn.html
>     <https://music-encoding.org/guidelines/v4/content/cmn.html>
> 
> 
> The fact is that no conductor in the world is using CMN, do they? :)
> 
> Just the "old-fashioned", non-xml-based musical scores ...
> 
> If "XML is one's language" and they have to conduct an orchestra, what 
> are the chances they will use CMN and not  the  "old-fashioned", 
> non-xml-based musical scores ?
> Does even a single such example exist?
> 
> Luckily, no one has ever tried to represent a Venn diagram with XML...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat 
> everything as if it were a nail"
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument>)
> 
> To quote from this source:
> 
> The notion of a /golden hammer,/ "a familiar technology or concept 
> applied obsessively to many software problems", was introduced into 
> information technology 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology> literature in
> 1998 as an anti-pattern <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-pattern>: 
> a programming practice to be avoided.
> 
> Software developer José M. Gilgado has written that the law is still 
> relevant in the 21st century and is highly applicable to software 
> development. Many times software developers, he observed, "tend to use 
> the same known tools to do a completely new different project with new 
> constraints". He blamed this on "the comfort zone 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_zone> state where you don't 
> change anything to avoid risk. The problem with using the same tools 
> every time you can is that you don't have enough arguments to make a 
> choice because you have nothing to compare to and is limiting your 
> knowledge." The solution is "to keep looking for the best possible 
> choice, even if we aren't very familiar with it".
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> Dimitre
> 
> 
> 
>     On 30.05.2022 05:55, Dimitre Novatchev wrote:
>      >  >   > XML may not be good at representing concurrency (overlap
>     just on
>      > one-dimension -- time).
>      >  >
>      >  >   Is this an example of concurrency?
>      >
>      > Concurrency is any overlap on the time axis.
>      >
>      > A good example is the scores used by the director of an orchestra.
>      > Because of the concurrency of playing of the different groups of
>     musical
>      > instruments within an orchestra, their scores are printed not in one
>      > continuous linear line, but on many parallel horizontal lines one
>     below
>      > the other as the musical durations of non-paused play of these
>     different
>      > instrumental groups overlap horizontally, where the
>     horizontal axis from
>      > left to write expresses the time.
>      >
>      > Say you have a violin and a clarinet. The violin plays a single
>     tone in
>      > the interval [t1, t2] and the clarinet plays another tone in the
>      > interval [t3, t4]. And   t1 < t3 < t2 < t4    or    t3 < t1 < t4
>     < t2.
>      >
>      > With XML one cannot represent such partial overlaps, but overlaps
>     where
>      > one of the durations completely contains the other (which is not
>      > generally the rule in music), can be represented by two elements,
>     the
>      > second of which is contained in the scope of the first: t1 <= t3
>     < t4 <=
>      > t2   or t3 <= t1 < t2 <=t4
>      >
>      >
>      > On Sun, May 29, 2022 at 12:08 PM Roger L Costello
>     <costello@mitre.org <mailto:costello@mitre.org>
>      > <mailto:costello@mitre.org <mailto:costello@mitre.org>>> wrote:
>      >
>      >     Peter wrote:
>      >
>      >      > overlap can be expressed but not represented
>      >
>      >     I am not clear what you mean by "overlap". Is this an example of
>      >     overlap:
>      >
>      >     Classroom1 is used for teaching math, science, and writing.
>      >     Classroom2 is used for teaching art, history, and writing.
>      >
>      >     There is overlap between the topics taught in classroom1 and
>      >     classroom2 -- writing. Is that what you mean by "overlap"?
>      >
>      >     If so, can't that be expressed in XML something like this:
>      >
>      >     <Classrooms>
>      >          <Classroom1>
>      >              <ClassesTaught>
>      >                  <Class>math</Class>
>      >                  <Class>science</Class>
>      >                  <Class>writing</Class>
>      >              </ClassesTaught>
>      >          </Classroom1>
>      >          <Classroom2>
>      >              <ClassesTaught>
>      >                  <Class>art</Class>
>      >                  <Class>history</Class>
>      >                  <Class>writing</Class>
>      >              </ClassesTaught>
>      >          </Classroom2>
>      >     </Classrooms>
>      >
>      >     Dimitre wrote:
>      >
>      >      > XML may not be good at representing concurrency (overlap
>     just on
>      >     one-dimension -- time).
>      >
>      >     Is this an example of concurrency?
>      >
>      >     During times 1 - 3 John Doe is driving from Boston to NYC and
>     during
>      >     the same times Sally Smith is driving from LA to San Diego.
>      >
>      >     Is that an example of what you mean? If so, can't that be
>     expressed
>      >     in XML something like this:
>      >
>      >     <DrivingTrips>
>      >          <Person>
>      >              <Name>John Doe</Name>
>      >              <Itinerary>
>      >                  <Start>Boston</Start>
>      >                  <End>NYC</End>
>      >              </Itinerary>
>      >              <DriveTimes>
>      >                  <Time1/>
>      >                  <Time2/>
>      >                  <Time3/>
>      >              </DriveTimes>
>      >          </Person>
>      >          <Person>
>      >              <Name>Sally Smith</Name>
>      >              <Itinerary>
>      >                  <Start>LA</Start>
>      >                  <End>San Diego</End>
>      >              </Itinerary>
>      >              <DriveTimes>
>      >                  <Time1/>
>      >                  <Time2/>
>      >                  <Time3/>
>      >              </DriveTimes>
>      >          </Person>
>      >     </DrivingTrips>
>      >
>      >     Peter said:
>      >
>      >      > CSV is better at expressing row-and-column type data.
>      >
>      >     That might well be true, but it is possible to express
>      >     row-and-column concepts in XML. That is, the row-and-column
>     concept
>      >     in not outside the realm of concepts expressible by the XML
>     language.
>      >
>      >      > Various forms of database are better at expressing other
>     layouts
>      >     of atomic and relational data.
>      >
>      >     Again, that might well be true but the concept of a table is
>      >     expressible in XML.
>      >
>      >     Thank you Peter, Dimitre, and Gerrit but you haven't (yet)
>     convinced
>      >     me that there are concepts that are outside the realm of concepts
>      >     expressible using the language called XML.
>      >
>      >     A friend of mine is Chinese and today I asked her: "Are there
>      >     concepts that you can express in English that you cannot
>     express in
>      >     Chinese?" She responded, "Yes, there are concepts in English for
>      >     which there is no equivalent in Chinese." (The reverse is
>     also true
>      >     -- there are concepts that can be expressed in Chinese that
>     cannot
>      >     be expressed in English.)
>      >
>      >     Are there concepts in data language XYZ that cannot be
>     expressed in
>      >     the data language we call XML? What are the boundaries of the
>      >     language we call XML, in terms of concepts that can be expressed?
>      >     How does the XML language bound (limit) ones thinking about data?
>      >
>      >     /Roger
>      >
> 
>     
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> 
> --
> Cheers,
> Dimitre Novatchev
> ---------------------------------------
> Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
> ---------------------------------------
> To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk
> -------------------------------------
> Never fight an inanimate object
> -------------------------------------
> To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the 
> biggest mistake of all
> ------------------------------------
> Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.
> -------------------------------------
> You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what 
> you're doing is work or play
> -------------------------------------
> To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep.
> -------------------------------------
> Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
> -------------------------------------
> Typing monkeys will write all Shakespeare's works in 200yrs.Will they 
> write all patents, too? :)
> -------------------------------------
> Sanity is madness put to good use.
> -------------------------------------
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