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Re: Another documentation issue


From: Stephen
Subject: Re: Another documentation issue
Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 11:04:41 -0500

Yeah, thanks, I agree, I like to hear that.

Stephen

----- Original Message ----- From: "Mats Bengtsson" <address@hidden>
To: "Graham Percival" <address@hidden>
Cc: "Stephen" <address@hidden>; "lily-devel" <address@hidden>
Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 3:53 AM
Subject: Re: Another documentation issue


In addition: My experience is that Han-Wen and Jan are more
strict about what can be added to the program than I have seen
in any other open source project (which of course should be
considered a positive comment).

In addition to using the manual to teach about engraving practice,
the default layout given by the program should also adhere to good
engraving practice as far as possible. In other words, it should
take some extra effort to do "wrong". Again, this is something that
Han-Wen and Jan have focused on very consistently throughout the full
project. On the other hand, there isn't a typesetting rule that doesn't
have an exception, so it's clearly a good thing that LilyPond is so
flexible that it can produce more or less any layout.

   /Mats

Graham Percival wrote:

On 19-May-05, at 11:06 PM, Stephen wrote:

If Lilypond is meant to demonstrate the art of music engraving, if it is meant to recapture a lost art as it was practiced before the computer age, if it is meant to improve musical performances, then it should educate the user rather than allow the user to dictate to it. Meaning there is a downside to Lilypond being bigger and more powerful and more responsive to the user's demands. The vast majority of the time, bigger is better. But the average user may not be an expert music engraver and would make mistakes if Lilypond let him.


Have you read some LaTeX manuals?  If not, I highly recommend reading
one; have a look at the discussion about margins.

Changing the margins (at least, making it "1 inch" as is common in Word) isn't
recommended from a typographical point of view.  But many users want that
(at least when they first begin using LaTeX) -- including myself. Mostly because I was using it for university essays, and I knew that everybody else was using Word (with small margins) and I didn't want it to look as if I was padding my
essays.  :)

My point is that LaTeX lets the user do whatever he wants (including shooting himself in the foot), but the manual warns the user not to do so. LilyPond should do the same thing. Any education of the user should happen in the manual. Now, if you have any specific recommendations for user-education, please tell me. I'm
always happy to include people's patches to the docs.


I don't see a clear definition of what constitutes an improvement of Lilypond or statement of purpose other than what I read in the introduction,


OK, that's enough.

LilyPond is an open-source project. The contributors, be it Han-Wen and Jan working on internals, Mats answering questions, or me writing docs, work on whatever itch they want to scratch. I'm currently editing the "basic notation" chapter. Not because I think that's what the docs need the most (that would probably be clarifying the
"global issues" chapter), but because I'm a neat freak.

You may also want to read "Cathedral and the Bazaar", by ESR.  That deals
with the whole "leadership" issue.

Which I don't understand, because I think it is more exciting to develop a program which is more specific, rather than, say, a notation program.


Patches, be it to documentation or code, are always appreciated. Let your excitement run wild.

- Graham



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Mats Bengtsson
Signal Processing
Signals, Sensors and Systems
Royal Institute of Technology
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