James E. Bailey wrote:
Am 20.08.2008 um 11:15 schrieb Graham Percival:
It's not the job of the lilypond manual to teach users how to use
their operating systems. There's *tons* of other help available
on the internet for such tasks -- and a lot of that help has much
prettier pictures than we'd have the patience to create.
Cheers,
- Graham
This is very true, and I did have to consult much other information
in order to get it working, and the instructions in the lilypond
documentation can, with patience, be understood. The information is
there, and it's all correct, I'm just saying that for someone who's
making their first forays into this kind of software, knowing what a
$PATH is and setting it, and understanding that you have to
explicitly tell the computer that you want to do something in the
current directory is huge information.
I agree. But the problem's worse than that.
At the risk of being annoying repetitive: I program (poorly) in Ruby.
I've been programming in one thing or another for 30 years, off and on.
I've been exposed in one way or another to a number of main frame OS's
and to Windows and now Linux. I also have a demanding day job, and try
to practice my guitar 2-3 hours daily, and run. My ability to study up
on the fine-grained details of Linux, when I'm already trying to get
control of Ruby, and Lilypond, and a new CMS (as wall as run two web
sites, and design several others as a part time gig) is distinctly
limited.
So I come to Linux and virtually everything I need is installable right
out of the package managers. Cool. Some other stuff in common use in the
Kubuntu Linux world is available elsewhere by download as
Debian-packaged installers. I don't know exactly what that is, but I do
know what to do with it. Click and it installs itself, more or less like
the package manager stuff.
Then I come to the Lilypond website and there's something called an
"installer" for the stable and development version. An easy and inviting
download. I know what an installer is. I know what to do with it. And in
case I'm unsure what to do with, the website tells me very explicitly.
Only it's not right. THIS installer acts unlike anything I've ever used
in Linux. Seriously.
And after nearly 6 months of fairly intense work in my new Kubuntu
environment, I have NEVER heard of this business of Linux's not paying
attention to what directory you're in. It's totally brand new
information. Has never been mentioned on the very-intense Ruby list I
follow. Has never before gotten me in trouble with anything else. Just
with Lilypad.
So...I say there's a problem here. It has to do with frequency of an
event. Something that is a problem so infrequently needs to be
red-flagged. I wish it had been.
More fundamentally the problem I'm having is this: If someone with my
background can get so snarled up on this, I guarantee you that
essentially NO ONE else in my profession, or my family, or anyone I
personally know, has any business attempting to use Linux. Don't even
think of it.
I'm saying that if the Linux world wants more respect and attention and
bodies in the room, it needs to get it about where most people's heads
are at. I'm NOT a typical computer user at all, and *I*'m in trouble
often. Those other people? No chance at all.
For what it's worth.
And again...thanks for all the help people have offered me since I've
arrive here. I now have a very good looking score in front of me, as
fruits for this labor - and more to come. I'm loving the experience I'm
having here, mostly. I'd love to give a little talk about Lilypad at our
lively local Classical Guitar Society, but I'm not going to. I don't
want to witness the carnage.
I know this is a hard problem, and I don't see an easy solution for it
an a general level. We can chip away at in when we see something we can
personally fix.
I will certainly say this about the Lilipad documentation: Other than
possibly Gimp, I haven't seen anything else in the Linux application
program world that compares to it. I've found it usable, helpful, and to
the point. A fine achievement, without doubt.
t.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom Cloyd, MS MA, LMHC - Private practice Psychotherapist
Bellingham, Washington, U.S.A: (360) 920-1226
<< address@hidden >> (email)
<< TomCloyd.com >> (website)
<< sleightmind.wordpress.com >> (mental health weblog)
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