Re: Improving the Contributors Guide and LilyDev

[Graham Percival]

On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 03:02:32AM +0000, Carl Sorensen wrote:
> >A. Suggestions for LilyDev3:
> 
> All of these suggestions would actually probably be for LilyDev4.  I'm not
> sure that we will make another release of LilyDev3.  But if we did, I'm
> still happy to host it.

If somebody is available and interested in preparing lilydev4, I
suggest splitting the list of improvements into lilydev4-stuff and
CG-stuff.


> >(And/or in the CG walk the reader through the steps to change the editor
> >settings.)
> 
> This is an immediately-accessible thing to do.

Yes, although the editor settings can be done in advance in
lilydev4.  (I believe that /etc/skel/ is the place to look at, but
I know that somebody already figured this out and it wasn't me)

The CG could also have a section for "turning a typical ubuntu
installation into lilypond development-ready" (a shorter name
would be better), which gives details about this, setting PS1,
etc.  But ideally LilyDev4 should have as much as possible done in
advance, so that interested contributors can jump into
contributing.


> >In general avoid having sections that basically repeat each other in
> >different ways, for example, consider merging:
> >1. Git for the impatient (3.2.2) and Basic Git procedures (3.3)
> 
> There are reasons (perhaps historical) for this duplication.  3.2.2 is
> supposed to be briefer than 3.3.

The main reason is that when I wrote 3.2.2, I forgot that 3.3
existed.  Either that, or I thought that 3.3 was too long.  I
forget which.

Either way, I don't think we need both sections.

> >2. Compiling with LilyDev (2.3) and Compiling (4.x)
> 
> 2.3 is about getting it set up with LilyDev.  4.x is about general work
> whether with or without LilyDev.  We are much stronger about recommending
> the use of LilyDev than we were when the CG was originally written, so
> perhaps it's time to make a change here.

I think it's worth keeping a section about compiling for
non-lilydev, but perhaps something like "Advanced unix compiling"
(again, bad name) would be better.  Basically, make sure that 4.x
is clearly about general work.
(as an advanced Linux user, I would be annoyed if I had to wade
through lots of hand-holding in a discussion about how to compile
an open source project)


> We certainly want to make the CG accessible for new users/developers.  But
> we also want to have the CG useful for old developers and those
> experienced with other software development environments.   Perhaps we
> need to clarify these two different use cases, and separate them out more
> carefully in the CG.  But IMO we need to avoid making the CG only useful
> for newbies.

Yes.

> Thanks again for looking at this.  Certainly improving the CG is an
> important part of the health of LilyPond.

Absolutely!

- Graham