Re: Please forget LM MG NR IR SL AU

[Graham Percival]

On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:30:43 +0200
"Bertalan Fodor (LilyPondTool)" <address@hidden> wrote:

> I must note however that I strongly disagree with the approach "you
> must read the manual first". Honestly, when you buy an house-hold
> appliance you first read the manual? I doubt. For making the first
> cup of coffee you won't read the manual. Later, when you want to make
> different kinds of exotic coffees you will.

1)  lilypond is not a house-hold program.  Most users (ie window
people) will be too scared by text input to even *think* about
using lilypond.  My mother, for example.

2)  People don't buy lilypond.  It's Free software.

3)  You can't do *anything* in lilypond without reading the
tutorial at least.

> Perhaps it's because of my software developer experience, but I am 
> strongly and seriously against abbreviations and acronyms in any
> case. Reading and interpreting abbreviated text needs much more
> overhead than what you gain during write time. Not to mention better
> text editors where you can define abbreviations thus eliminating
> write time overhead.

Are you volunteering to spend 100 hours over the next year
responding to all the RTFM questions?  Not all the *interesting*
emails on -user; just all the stupid "Q: how can I get a < mark
under a few notes?  A: you read the `dynamics' section of the
docs." questions.

Having spent well over a hundred hours on such idiodicies in the
past four years, I have no patience left for them.

Cheers,
- Graham

PS lest anybody say "maybe we should get a support team of
non-experts who have the energy/interest in politely
explaining/answering beginner questions", I'll point out that I
made a few attempts to recruit such people last Spring.