Steinberg Dorico

[John Ruggero]

The copious praise that has issued forth from members of this forum even before there is a product available speaks volumes about the faith that we have in Dorico. Any critical comments have been of the protective grandparent variety: fretting about parental decisions and mistakes that might have been made or might be made that might stand in the way of "our grandchild".

I don't think there is anyone on the planet more invested in a positive outcome for Dorico than yours truly, with the possible exception of the Dorico team.

There, I used "Dorico" four times in one post, now maybe several hundred more and...

[DatOrganistTho]

There, I used "Dorico" four times in one post, now maybe several hundred more and...

I'm proud of you. Way to work through the pain.

I must have gotten the wrong impression then about the comments.

Of course, if you intend to buy it out the gate, then I would understand if you are concerned about its feature set. But even then, why gripe about it? Can't use it? Use what you are used to instead. It will get fixed eventually.

Why are we concerned with Dorico's marketing scheme? Do we not believe that Steinberg believes that it's program will flourish?

[John Ruggero]

DatOrganistTho wrote:

But even then, why gripe about it? Can't use it? Use what you are used to instead. It will get fixed eventually.

No one is griping. But I think that some may be concerned that there might be show-stoppers that are hardwired into the program or into the basic philosophy behind the program that will produce yet another flawed notation product. In the demo, there are tantalizing glimpses of capabilities that I have longed for for a very long time. It will be a real disappointment if there were roadblocks that will prevent me from ever using those capabilities.

[Fred G. Unn]

Of course, if you intend to buy it out the gate, then I would understand if you are concerned about its feature set. But even then, why gripe about it? Can't use it? Use what you are used to instead. It will get fixed eventually.

Why are we concerned with Dorico's marketing scheme? Do we not believe that Steinberg believes that it's program will flourish?

Well, the squeaky wheel got the grease. Daniel mentioned at the Dorico forum that the developers implemented the scaling factor today! This was obviously not a terribly difficult thing to do, it just hadn't been planned for, and now I (and the other 0.1% of users who care about that) am happy!

I am a bit worried about the marketing without such basic features as chord symbols. Yes, I know they will be in the program eventually, but I would like to see a modern notation program that isn't beholden to 25 year old code be successful, and I think that's a mis-step on their part. I certainly could be wrong.

No one is griping. But I think that some may be concerned that there might be show-stoppers that are hardwired into the program or into the basic philosophy behind the program that will produce yet another flawed notation product. In the demo, there are tantalizing glimpses of capabilities that I have longed for for a very long time. It will be a real disappointment if there were roadblocks that will prevent me from ever using those capabilities.

I might have been griping a little bit . I agree with your sentiment though, and just want to contribute a slightly different viewpoint than the one the developers have been considering.

[David Ward]

I'm expecting to buy Dorico when the opportunity arises. However, whether or not I'll be able to learn to use the new application efficiently, and to what extent I'll want to reduce, let alone abandon, my current use of Finale is far from sure.

I'm antediluvian enough to compose in pencil manuscript directly from my inner ear, aiming at first for something between a full score and a short score. For that greater part of my notation which is close to being ‘standard’, I should love to be able to rely on default settings in the engraving software for the next stage. During the 15 years I've been using Finale I've gradually been made aware of the limitations of its default settings, but also of Finale's flexibility for overriding these defaults. Some quite basic things, though, do seem tortuous in the extreme to achieve. The most thoroughly annoying thing about Finale, though, is (for me at least) that things don't always STAY PUT, but sometimes mysteriously move back to some default position.

Daniel Spreadbury mentioned ‘the cognitive load placed on the user’, which got instant recognition from me. When my notation is more or less conventional, I'd be happiest not to have to think too much - indeed at all - about spacing equations (or whatever), line thicknesses, and the whole vast plethora of engraving details to me arcane. When my notation is less conventional, then of course I do expect to have to work things out.

[John Ruggero]

I totally agree, David.

In an ideal notation program, the general user would be well taken care of, and the specialist would feel unconstrained. I hope Dorico is that program.

[John Ruggero]

That Fred got his feature request even before the program has appeared is a very good sign!

Open source users like DatOrganistTho take it for granted that "it will get fixed eventually". Users of non-open source software have often not had that experience and therefore are not so sure...

[HaraldS]

I find it merely strange that many people obviously have confidence in a new product based on the single fact that it is new. The argument that other programs contain "20-year-old-code" seems to gain popularity. It seems obvious to me that Finale might be the target. Even if that is not the case, 20 year old code my very well be very good code.

I wrote my first notation program on a Commodore 128 some 30 years ago in Basic and Assembler, I wrote (not professionally) a platform-independent C++ class library for music notation some 15 years ago. in both cases, the basic algorithms about calculating note positions on a staff and all the abstract things stayed the same. Considering that, I can't take the argument "20 year old code is bad" seriously, it depends extremly on which function and algorithm you're talking about.

Harald

[jayanderson]

I find it merely strange that many people obviously have confidence in a new product based on the single fact that it is new. The argument that other programs contain "20-year-old-code" seems to gain popularity.

I don't think it's just the fact that it's new. They've had an informative series of blog posts and have felt much more transparent about the process compared with other commercial scoring developers. They've also felt much more open to listening to users. Whether this is actually true or if it even matters we'll see.

I'm a programmer by trade as well. There are all sorts of trade-offs to make. There's great freedom in building from scratch - you don't have to be slave to the legacy system design, but you do have to write everything from scratch including lots of new bugs. These developers had done extensive work in the domain so they know some of the pitfalls and would be able to design the system from the start to have the flexibility they desire (there's also the possibility that the second system effect - that the design becomes a complicated mess). Time will tell here as well.

[Knut]

I find it merely strange that many people obviously have confidence in a new product based on the single fact that it is new. The argument that other programs contain "20-year-old-code" seems to gain popularity. It seems obvious to me that Finale might be the target. Even if that is not the case, 20 year old code my very well be very good code.

I wrote my first notation program on a Commodore 128 some 30 years ago in Basic and Assembler, I wrote (not professionally) a platform-independent C++ class library for music notation some 15 years ago. in both cases, the basic algorithms about calculating note positions on a staff and all the abstract things stayed the same. Considering that, I can't take the argument "20 year old code is bad" seriously, it depends extremly on which function and algorithm you're talking about.

Harald

Harald, I'm no programmer, so forgive me if some of my views are misguided, but I don't think any of us here who are confident of or are rooting for Dorico to succeed are doing this simply because the program is new. Since there is no way to gauge speed and reliability before the program is released, the main thing that is attractive at this point is it's feature set.

However, while there certainly may be many applications which still are running like clockwork, even on the newest hardware and operating systems, a number of releases of Finale, particularly in the last few years have revealed clear signs of not being able to keep up. The program seems increasingly inefficient, and every new version seems to introduce it's own band of bugs, without fixing many of the ones already there.

Speaking for myself, I have yet to use a version as stable and speedy as Finale 2003, the last version running on Mac OS 9. I haven't used every single version since then, but it seems to me that the introduction of OS X was, and still is, a difficult system for Finale to run on, for some reason. The last couple of versions have been particularly terrible, especially when it comes to efficiency, and in comparison to other pro applications on the market, Finale's interface seems rather ancient to me.

That said, I've used Finale so extensively for such a long time that I've gotten used to most of it's long standing kinks (or in some cases gotten over them with the help of a macro program). Only time will tell if Dorico can deliver what I need and supersede Finale, but at this point I'm certainly an optimist.