[abcusers] Re: Announcement: ABC 2.0.0 draft online

[Bryancreer]

Richard Robinson wrote -

>abc2win introduced constructs, out of the blue,
>that the abc->ps family have never _been_ able to read.

I really wish I understood this hate campaign against abc2win.  On his website, Jim Vint credits a great many people who gave him support some of whom are still active on this list) so he didn't work in isolation.  Many developers have introduced their innovations without consultation and continue to do so.  In fact, it seems to be the accepted way of doing things since Guido says as a note in his draft standard -

>features that are not implemented in ABC applications cannot be considered part
>of the standard.

       which seems to imply that the standard follows the software, not the other way round.

Here again, are some extracts from the chronology on the abc home page -

1995
       September
             Jim Vint's abc2win version ___ announced for Windows 3.?.
1996
       February
             First public version of abc2ps, a program that converts ABC directly to
             PostScript.
1997
       January
             Version 1.6.1 of abc2mtex. This may have been the version used to write
             the first ABC syntax standard,
1998
       March 3
             Jean-Francois Moine's abcm2ps (multi-staff and multi-voice) variant of
             abc2ps was first announced.

Will somebody please explain to me how abc2win was conflicting with abc2ps and the standard when neither existed when it was first released?  Since it looks as if Jim introduced ! as a line break long before the introduction of the !....! construct, why is this his fault?

Was there any attempt at cooperation in those early days or was it enmity at first sight?

Bryan Creer