Re: it's all up to you users (was: Please forget LM MG NR IR SL AU)

[Han-Wen Nienhuys]

On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 7:07 AM, Graham Percival <address@hidden> wrote:

> I'm busy and pissed off at the amount of time I've spent on
> lilypond.  Approximately three thousand hours now... and I stopped
> composing and arranging *FOUR YEARS* ago.
>
> What does three thousand hours mean?  Well, if I was paid minimum
> wage (in my province), that would give me an extra $24,000
> dollars.  If I got my graduate student TA wage -- which is a
> better judge, given that there's always a need for more computer
> science TAs at my university (so I could have been working extra
> hours), and given the amount of technical and leadership ability
> that was required of me -- that would give me $60,000.  Since I
> live on less than $10,000 per year, including tuition and
> textbooks, that's a *lot* of money to me.
>

I've easily spent much more time than that, and also in terms of
money, if you consider what good programmers make.  Perhaps I regret
some of it, but mostly because I should probably have spent more time
chasing girls and getting drunk.  Nevertheless, it's been a valuable
experience for me, and although I spend much less time now -and that
suits me fine- I'm not at all angry for the time I spent, because
today I see a thriving user list and a more-or-less thriving
development community.

I tend to ignore mails that look like a waste of my time or energy, so
I'm not very worried about people not getting the answers they want.
If I want to have an answer, I always put indications that I read the
RTFM in my pleas for help. I often see those indications missing on
the questions I see pass by one the lilypond. list.

-- 
Han-Wen Nienhuys - address@hidden - http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen