RE: lilypond-user Digest, Vol 115, Issue 58

[Philip Thomas]

Graham Percival wrote:

> I cannot in good conscience encourage anybody to become involved
> with lilypond development 
at the present time unless they have a
> mentor.

David Kastrup wrote:

>I would have no qualms encouraging people

>into trying to get involved.
>
>They can expect some friction, naturally, work they do unnecessarily.
>That's a 
possible source of frustration.  It can be minimized by asking
>for feedback.  Now if things are as bad as to make 80% 
give up
>eventually, it means that 20% eventually manage to contribute.
>
>20% is more than the 0% we get following 
your recommendations.

Graham Percival wrote:

>That's because you are an excellent programmer, mathematician, and
>all-
round "technical guy" who would have no trouble learning git
>if you didn't know it already.  I am not -- at best I'd 
say that
>I'm a good programmer, almost competent mathematician, and
>passable "technical guy".  So I have a great deal 
of empathy for
>people who have difficulty with those.
>
>More to the point, I have experience mentoring over 20 people 
for
>lilypond doc work.  I *know* that people find it difficult.  I
>know that people find it difficult even when 
somebody else takes
>care of all the git stuff for them!  If you want me to listen to
>anybody who says "oh, there's 
some friction, but just tell them to
>jump in", then mentor at least 5 people who stick around for at
>least 3 months.


David Kastrup wrote:

>Now if things are as bad as to make 80% give up eventually, it
>means that 20% eventually manage 
to contribute.

Graham Percival wrote:

>At the "karma cost" of wasting the time and effort of the 80%.
>I'm not 
willing to pay that cost -- especially when we could cut
>that in half with 10-20 hours of prep work.
>
>[...] I want 
to get the
>reputation of treating lilypond volunteers well, since that will
>encourage more people to volunteer.  By 
discouraging people from
>having a hard time now, I'm gambling on a long-term benefit in
>that when the CG is better 
and we actively recruit volunteers,
>more people will step up.

I wasn't expecting this to be a tension-free exercise, 
especially having followed some other recent threads with interest. Nor am I 
going to deflate if an expanded cheatsheet 
doesn't materialize or doesn't attract any interest. I'm not especially 
tough-skinned, but I have some time on my hands 
and the challenge appeals to me. Equally, however, I don't feel inclined, at 
least at present, to dive into what for me 
would be the LilySwamp of Texinfo, Lilydev and git.

What I would like to attempt, for my part, is to make some 
contribution from the perspective of a (comparative but not utter beginner) 
user of the non-programmer variety, and it 
seems to me that expanding and improving the content of a cheatsheet might be 
both useful and within my capacity to 
achieve.

While Graham and David may not see eye-to-eye on some questions of approach and 
how best to manage user 
contributions, I don't feel discouraged by what either of them has said so far 
as my working on such a task is 
concerned, so I intend to just do it, keeping my aims fairly modest, and see 
what the reaction is, if any, to the 
result. I don't think I need any technical mentoring at this stage, although 
I'll definitely be pleased to get feedback 
-- from anyone -- on drafts.

Cheers, Philip