Re: adding snippets manually

[Graham Percival]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 09:06:34AM -0600, Carl D. Sorensen wrote:
> 
> On 4/18/09 8:57 AM, "Graham Percival" <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > No, no -- when a programmer writes a regtest for a new feature,
> > the minimal "documentation" work is that he copies it or runs a
> > python script or something to put it in the snippets.  If he wants
> 
> Oh, OK.  See, I felt like part of my work for adding the new feature
> (complex dash patterns in slurs, and a change in syntax for setting
> slur dash patterns) was to add the sections to the NR describing it.  Given
> the current organization of the NR, it's really trivial (but then again,
> I've been working on docs, and not all developers have).

Yes.  Also, you're a native English speaker.  I agree that the
/complete/ work of adding a new feature isn't over until it's in
the NR (or perhaps IR-only, as appropriate) -- but this doesn't
mean that the programmer needs to do it all himself.

As long as there's a regtest, a documenter (Jonathan?) should be
able to figure it out and write the NR stuff accordingly.

> > We make sure it compiles by compiling the docs.  We absolutely do
> > not have the resources (in this case, CPU-wise as well as
> > people-wise) to check every single piece of .ly code that's in the
> > git tree for every single release.
> > 
> 
> You're right, obviously.

Valentin, here's your top quote for the next LilyPond Report.  :P

>  That's why I'm glad we have you thinking about
> issues like this.

speaking of which...

> >> version (2.10.12).  We'd like to have a 2.10 version, a 2.12 version, and
> >> maybe even a 2.13 version.
> > 
> > No.  No, we wouldn't like that.  It would be even more of a
> > support nightmare.
> 
> Why is it harder to leave the old version up than to take it down when we
> move to the new stable version?  What am I missing?

Time.  What happens if somebody adds a nifty snippet to the old
LSR?  Will we notice?  If so, what next -- do we manually copy it
into the new one?

What happens if somebody adds a nifty snippet to the new LSR, but
that snippet doesn't require any new features?  Do we manually
copy it back to the old one?  Do we sort out some kind of
automatic thing?

The answer the latter question is no.  It's been suggested before,
but it's more work than Sebastino is willing to do, and I have a
firm rule not to demand more of volunteers than they're willing to
give.  If nobody else is offering to do this particular task (and
nobody /is/), then we shouldn't pester him about it.

I'm not above trying to guilt-trip people into doing vital
lilypond tasks, but this clearly isn't vital.


So... we *could* have two distinct LSRs.  Or three, or four.  As
time progresses and, Mao willing, people start to read and
contribute more snippets, what happens to these multiple LSRs?
Nothing good.


Yes, if we always keep LSR at the latest stable, then some people
running old stable might get confused when something doesn't work.
But that's the only problem this setup faces.
(if somebody running unstable can't compile any LSR snippets,
that's not a problem, because newbies shouldn't screw around with
unstable releases, and any non-newbie should know better than to
complain about snippets breaking between versions if they didn't
run convert-ly and read the NEWS)

Cheers,
- Graham