Re: Is GridLY the future?

[Werner LEMBERG]

>>> Sometimes people are scared by a maybe too rough tone, though.
>>
>> It *is* a problem, and not only about code quality.  More than once
>> I abandoned a patch before the quality of the code was even
>> considered but because of fruitless discussions about use cases,
>> when for example using LilyPond to copy from existing sheet music
>> is labelled a "private use-case of a single developer".

Well, someone playing the `advocatus diaboli' is quite important IMHO:
in many cases, defending your own code leads to further improvements
and refinements.

>> So actually I'm not too motivated providing patches for LilyPond
>> when I can also implement what I need in openLilyLib. I think this
>> is still better for LilyPond than if I' had completely quit.

Yes.  Having the stuff in openLilyLib means that you can play with it
until the code is mature enough for integration into lilypond.  It is
by no means a disaster if code doesn't get immediately accepted into
lilypond!  In case you are convinced of your stuff, simply try again
later on.

>> Actually I'm quite convinced that this situation has a notable
>> impact on the overall development activiyt.

I don't think so.  Have you ever observed the development of Emacs or
the Linux kernel, for example by reading the `emacs-devel' list?  The
rules there are *much* stricter than lilypond's one w.r.t. coding
style, overall structure, etc., and in spite of this there is *a lot*
of development going on.

> I agree with Urs - in my opinion LilyPond is not developer-friendly
> enough.  Actually it's one of the reasons why I was away for so long
> - the friction in the community caused me to loose some motivation
> to work on LilyPond.  And I'm not the only one.

Indeed, this is unfortunate.  Ideas to improve the overall situation
are highly welcome – IIRC, Graham made a lot of good suggestions how
to lead contributors.  However, what we need is more developers that
are *really* interested in developing lilypond!  People who are scared
away by a few harsh but factual comments don't count IMHO.  Of course,
ad-hominem attacks are definitely a no-go, but everything else has to
be seen in the light of improving lilypond.

I'm reading basically all e-mails on both lilypond-user and
lilypond-devel, and I never observe this hostility noted by others.
It seems that I'm an insensitive guy :-)


    Werner