Re: Request for comments: prettify snippets page

[Graham Percival]

On Fri, 28 Dec 2007 21:37:28 +0100
"Valentin Villenave" <address@hidden> wrote:

> 2007/12/28, Graham Percival <address@hidden>:
> 
> > I hate to be a wet blanket (I'm fond of this phrase: "the person
> > who stops other people from having fun"), but everything that I've
> > learned about documentation project management is screaming "not
> > worth the effort".
> 
> Lol -- pure vintage Graham Percival ;-)

Heh.  Yes, some days it feels like that's all I do around here:
"suggestion reject; not worth the effort".

Eyolf: you're half right.  :)  I love being a wet blanket to
clueless users who aren't offering to do any work themselves.  But
I really _do_ hate discouraging anybody with a clue and who's
offering to do the work themselves.


> > - this would require changing LSR.  In my experience, any change,
> >   no matter how simple, takes at least one month.  While we're
> >   waiting for that change, you'll have a whole bunch of modified
> >   files in the build system ready for the new stuff, and I'll
> >   still be using the old build system.
> 
> AFAIK, now than Sebastiano has released the full LSR sources, we could
> have some very concrete changes (maybe even patches) to offer him, and
> I'm sure it would no longer take him several weeks to just commit such
> changes.

I checked that already -- version 0.4 was released in Oct.  IIRC
we've had some changes since then, but maybe they were just in the
DB side of things and not in the actual code.  Feel free to
investigate more.

> Besides, I'm almost done with my full LSR-reviewing, so sooner or
> later we'll have to contact him anyway, to remove the old directories
> system.

Sure.  But IIRC, John has one week where he's relatively free, and
then gets busy again.  I'm warning him that this job probably will
not fit into his holiday week.


> > I therefore feel obliged to point out all the problems, in order
> > to potentially save you a lot of time/effort/frustration.
> 
> Of course, I fully understand your opinion, but sometimes people just
> feel like spending useless time "just because".

That's fine, as long as he's aware of the potential problems.
Particularly the ones that are completely out of our control (ie
turnaround time with LSR changes).

> I'm not sure Lilypond would exist at all if Han-Wen
> and Jan had be willing to avoid spending time/efforts/frustrations in
> the first place.

No, no!  I'm not saying "don't do this".  I'm saying "here's some
problems to consider before you spend time doing this".  And also
"here's a list of things which are easier, and which I personally
think will improve the docs more".  I'm specifically trying _not_
to tell John what to do; I'm just giving him information that lets
him make a more informed choice.


> Just a small addition: I've been quite busy in December, but I'm back.
> My laptop is broken again (I've been doomed by the Acer curse), and
> I'm stuck on a very old Windows box, but thanks to the excellent work
> of the msysGit guys I have full access to the Git repository. The only
> thing I can't do right now is compile Lilypond (unless the minGW
> packages ever get updated, which I doubt).

1)  Could you write up detailed explanations of this msysgit
thing?  Trevor might be interested.

2)  Once you're finished the LSR review, get the templates tag and
add all the templates.  I'd like to remove them from the LM.

Cheers,
- Graham