Re: Instrumental Group Names in Score

[Valentin Villenave]

2008/1/4, Kieren MacMillan <address@hidden>:

> For future reference, I don't read or respond to posts which begin
> with such ludicrous and intentionally irritating statements...

Hi everybody, hi Kieren,

I think there's some kind of a misunderstanding here...

I thought everybody on this list was used to Graham's strong and
definitive statements (I should find, for instance, the mail he
answered me a year ago, when I first suggested to categorize LSR
snippets by tags instead of directories :)

The point is, everybody (that goes especially for open-source) is here
with a different approach in mind. We all come from different worlds,
countries, cultural and musical backgrounds (not to mention Operating
systems, programmins languages etc).

What LilyPond has always tried to achieve is to give each of all these
people what they're looking for: a completely newbie can use LilyPond
to produce simple scores, while a composer like you or myself can
produce complicated large scores, while a developer such as Nicolas
can write huge pieces of code to achieve wonderful magical things...

Some people want explanations, others just don't. None is right or
wrong here: motivations and people are just different, and we're all
fine with it (we have to) -- as long as users don't go ranting against
contributors and volunteers, like it happens sometimes on the list
(not quite often, I might add -- Graham would say "still far too
often" I guess).

Sometimes, explanations are not necessarily a good thing. They can
confuse newbies, or unexperienced users. But as you pointed out, the
lack of explanations is to absolutely avoid as well. The solution is
simple: clearly make the difference between the "primary intention"
((c)Graham Percival) of a piece of documentation, and its possible
followups, more documented but also more technical.

e.g. first tell the user what he just needs to know to be able to use
a program (or a macro), and only then, provide him with some more
details ; this way he'll only read at advanced explanations if he
chooses to, be it out of curiosity, or to look for a specific thing,
etc.

The Notation Reference vs Internals Reference division is a very good
example of what i'm talking about, but in the NR itself, each section
first introduces the most simple commands, and only then the Commonly
tweaked properties, etc. It's a great Documentation Editor thinking,
and no wonder Graham just put it this way again in the macro-related
discussion.

As for me, I use LATeX without ever looking at the code, because I
just find it boring, and I don't like its syntax at all. However, in
LilyPond, I could spend hours (as a matter of fact, I often do)
looking at the code, because I basically felt in love with it -- in a
very nerd-way, I give you that :-)

That's sometimes a matter of taste, too ;-)

Best Regards,
Valentin

PS. Graham's statements are *always* intentionally irritating. This is
what he does best, and if he ever were to deny it, just don't believe
him :)