Re: constructive criticism

[Ferenc Wagner]

Jan Nieuwenhuizen <address@hidden> writes:

> Ferenc Wagner writes:
>
>> Bugreports are not the best way to improve documentation,
>
> For the developers, they are.

I humbly find it unfair that you didn't quote the clause:

>> unless the reporter literally includes the piece of text
>> she wants

But anyway, I'm now aiming at giving you *patches*, which
you prefer even to bug reports, don't you?

>>>> Would you consider a "manual with comments" (like php and
>>>> mysql have) on the web, or even a wiki manual?
>
> FYI: We started and filled a wikiwiki some three odd years
> ago, when wikiwikis were the next hot thing.  We decided
> to take it off line last year, because the experiment
> failed.  It is yet another potential source of information
> to track, it grows stale and it had hardly any
> contributors besides the developers.  Although there are
> exceptions, lowering the threshold only yields less useful
> information.

Ok, I really did not know about this.  My theory, which is
exclusively mine and invented be me alone, is that linking
it from the individual manual pages would help a lot.  Of
course, in practice theory and practice are often different.
I admit I have no experience besides the Haskell Wiki, which
works pretty well serving an identical purpose.

> I applaud a good initiative to help users or help Lily get
> better, if someone thinks she should setup a wiki and
> relay useful information to one of the mailing lists, that
> would be great.  But we probably won't retry any
> automating of the manual or website any time soon.

Dandy, if people like the idea, I will have a look.  It's a
pity that only users like me (no offense intended) seem to
like it.  More support would mean more motivation...

>> I for one do not speak Texinfo.
>
> Sorry, but that's hardly an excuse IMHO.  Have you seen
> the lilypond manual?  The body of your email is a valid
> piece of texinfo ;-)

That's fair.  Well, before posting I had a look at the
.itelys, since I happened to have a source tree handy.  You
don't expect users have it, do you?  Anyway, the point is
writing/fixing/asking *while* reading, as opposed to
updating from cvs, searching and modifying a file in an
editor, diffing, posting and waiting for the changes to
appear.  Having learned Scheme for the sake of Lily I think
I could also learn Texinfo, that's not a problem, you are
right.

Hey, just noticed I was talking about lowering the limit,
which you are against!  I'm doomed. :)

Feri.