Re: Problem with remove bar number/ why I'm not upgrading to the new stable version

[Thomas Morley]

2012/10/26 David Nalesnik <address@hidden>:
> Hi James,
>
> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 1:08 PM, james <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>>
>> My main issue is that when I don't understand how to do something, while 
>> there might be a way to do it that I could understand, because the "power 
>> users" are the ones that more often than not respond, I'm left with an 
>> answer that my solve my immediate problem, but in a way that I don't 
>> understand, and can't adapt to future problems. Unfortunately, there's no 
>> real solution to the problem other than saying, "and please limit the amount 
>> of scheme in an answer, because I don't understand it".
>
> OK, I guess I qualify as one of the "power users" who puts a bit of
> Scheme on the lists.  There are questions that can be answered with a
> simple "do this basic override and look at this reference for more
> info".  If there are questions like this, that's the kind of answer I
> give (though I am usually beaten to it!)
>
> However, there are often questions that can't be answered in any way
> but to delve into Scheme.  As recently, for example, when a question
> was posed about using \draw-line to make a dashed line instead of a
> solid one.  AFAIK, there's no simple way to do it which you can look
> up in one of the manuals.  The only way to answer the poster's
> question was to rewrite Lily's Scheme code for \draw-line into Scheme
> code for a new command \draw-dashed-line, which Harm and I did.

Well, my first thought was to demonstrate how to do it using postscript.
But the disadvantage would be that the user has to know (or learn) to
use postscript-commands.


> Maybe
> someday Lily will be enhanced so that no one need "see the gears," but
> in the meantime, that's the stopgap solution these questions will
> receive.  (Unless they are to remain unanswered, that is.)
>
> Lately, I have noticed that there are fewer basic questions being
> asked.  I do hope that that's not through some sort of intimidation,
> over a misconception over what this forum is about.

I think some intimidation could be present, but how to do it different?

Not answering?

Or (back to the draw-dashed-line) demonstrating how to do it with:
drawing a small line
some padding
drawing a small line with appropriate offset
some padding
drawing a small line with appropriate offset
some padding
drawing a small line with appropriate offset
...
??
All needed commands are default-commands!

This would be a work Sisyphus would refuse to do.



Answering user-questions (with some scheme where necessary) is the
sort of work I _do_ like and I'm not that bad in doing so (at least I
hope so).

Well, I could switch more on the developer-corner, doing more
review-work, as far as scheme is concerned (would help David (K),
too), but I feel I would be less effective there, at least currently.

> Perhaps users are
> finding their answers more reliably in the manuals, and it is only
> when they can't find them that they turn to the lists--I don't know.
>
> -David

Regards,
  Harm