This thread is rapidly drifting off the original subject, which was to locate the author of the program that Erich Rickheit uses on his site to generate notation with pennywhistle tablature... Not to argue the merits of tablature vs notation vs learning-by-ear.

For any who may be interested, the program genrates tablature in conjunction with standard notation (read both at the same time), not just tablature only. This program is only one of two that I know of that will allow the key of the whistle to be selected independent of the key signature of the tune, and is the only one that I know of that does this by using cross-fingered patterns as opposed to half-holing. Tablature by itself is of course worthless, as no timing infromation is provided. But... Tablature, in conjunction with standard notation, can be useful to certain students in the early stages of learning to read music, if properly used. Particularly, the type tablature used at the site in question.

The merits of learning tunes by ear vs notation is of course a perpetual argument and has nothing what-so-ever to do with the subject of this post... That subject will be argued till doomsday, I am sure with no resolution.

Now, climbing down from my soap box, does anyone know who authored this program for Erich? :-) (Sorry if I seem grumpy, but experience has shown that the question just won't get answered if the discussion drifts too far off-topic.)