Re: Documentation: Software architecture overview and details?

[Jonathan Henkelman]

Robert 

> I think most of my struggle is because I haven't found a document that
> explains the flow of information through Lilypond. 

> There is lots of reference material on the individual interfaces and
> objects, but I haven't found any explanation of what those things
> actually are. 

If such information exists, I havn't found it yet (I am experience in C/C++ as 
well as other languages, but only have brief LISP experience).  In fact, I 
have been chewing over the idea of trying to contribute something.  Graham has 
suggested that it be done by editing/expanding existing chapters (esp. Ch. 9) 
in the manual which I think is good advice.  

1) I envison something that outlines the flow of information from the input 
file to the output.  
2) It would also need to have a section outlining the various components and 
objects touched along the way. (e.g. engravers, events, objects, properties, 
interfaces, grobs, translators (trans. props), layout object)
3) I think it would be useful if the section outlining how to extract 
information from the programmers docs was clarified and expanded. (so far I 
have found that just going in and mucking around until I find the relevent 
info works, but it is far from fail safe and I surely don't feel like I know 
what I am doing).

The catch is that I don't understand LP well enough, so I had thought that if 
I ever got to it, I would solicit the help of the 'wizards' to briefly explain 
things, then I would try and learn from that base and write up something in 
plain english.  We'll see how time allows, but certainly not before March...

On the other hand, this is a major bottle neck on the learning curve for new 
LP users.  I wonder about trying to streamline and standardize the coding 
format and syntax, (lexicon?) which would make some of this go away. But that 
is a bigger job and I expect there would be more (justifiable) resistance from 
people that have learned it and don't want to relearn something else. (e.g. 
the subtle difference between override, tweak, set, outputProperty, different 
syntax inside/outside a layout block, are more or less still opaque to me, but 
I'll get it in time).

Good luck and post here if you find what you are looking for.

Jonathan