Re: cresc. whitespace padding

[Phil Holmes]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "EdBeesley" <address@hidden>
To: <address@hidden>
Sent: Saturday, October 12, 2013 2:45 PM
Subject: Re: cresc. whitespace padding


> David Kastrup wrote
> > EdBeesley &lt;
>
> > edplaysdrums@
>
> > &gt; writes:
> >
> > > Damnit David, I'm a musician not a programmer! In all seriousness
> > > though I always do my best to figure out the answer myself via the
> > > documentation.
> >
> > Good.  Then you can tell us where the documentation falls short.  To be
> > exact, I reacted to your statement:
> >
> > > Now when you say this could be easily turned into a
> > > music-function... could we assume for a second that I'm totally dumb
> > > and have no idea how to do this?
> >
> > And my answer to that was: "That's where LilyPond's documentation could
> > come in handy..."
> >
> > You are in obvious disagreement:
> >
> > > I know I've asked a far few questions over the past week but believe
> > > me there are a lot that I've not posted because I've spent hours
> > > reading through the manual and snippets. I'm very conscious about only
> > > using the mailing list as a last resort instead of a short-cut to
> > > problems I could solve myself, and I'm sorry if I've not given that
> > > impression!
> >
> > So let's see where 5 minutes (we are not talking hours here) with the
> > manual will take us.
> >
> > I first look up "music function" in the Notation Reference's index and
> > find
> > &lt;URL:http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.16/Documentation/notation/using-music-functions#index-Music-functions&gt;
> >
> > Going straight to the second section "substitution function examples"
> > (assuming that I am dumb and the first section "Substitution function
> > syntax" scares me) from there, the very first example illustrates how to
> > wrap a code passage taking numerical values as arguments into a music
> > function.
> >
> > So obviously you got stuck elsewhere in your attempt to solve that
> > problem yourself in the hour between the time the non-parametric
> > solution was posted and you asked for getting a solution using a
> > function.
> >
> > Where?  How can we improve the documentation so that anybody faced with
> > the same task, namely wrapping some code with parameters into a music
> > function, is not still floored after having been given the right
> > keywords?
> >
> > Could we assume for a second that I'm totally clueless and have no idea
> > how to do this?
> >
> > --
> > David Kastrup
>
>
> I'm sensing a certain level of hostility here which I don't think is
> completely deserved....

I don't think it was intended.  The problem is that the documentation for 
Lilypond is generally excellent and occasionally useless.  Regular 
contributors get a little tired of users who can't be bothered to read the 
bits that are excellent, and instead ask here (often repeatedly asking 
questions that are trivially solved with a quick R of TFM).  David was at 
pains to request suggestions on how to improve an aspect of the 
documentation that you have found useless for your purposes.

> Has anyone ever broached the topic of a subscription "help-line" forum or
> something like that? If there was a way I could pay a subscription fee and
> then get suggested snippets like the above without having to spend time
> trying to work it out first I would sign up immediately. This way I 
> wouldn't
> have to feel guilty about asking a question and people with superior
> knowledge would get more than just a thank you for their time...

http://lilypond.org/sponsoring.html

--
Phil Holmes