Re: GSoC 2020 update: Aug 7

[Owen Lamb]

On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 10:06 PM Urs Liska <lists@openlilylib.org> wrote:

> Hi Owen,
>
> it's always a pleasure seeing your project evolve and proceed. I'd like
> to throw in a comment, although I'm rather sure it isn't actually
> needed.


> I don't recall reading anything about it but probably you have thought
> about it right from the start, so please take this as just a friendly
> reminder.
>

On the contrary! I'm pretty forgetful, and this reminder is just what I
needed to get my ducks in a row.

Now that the deadline of the project starts coming into view you should
> keep in mind that the priority is to have your work properly tested,
> cleaned-up and merged. This is much more important than getting one or
> more further features implemented - even if they should be your pet
> features or seem crucial.
> As far as I can see your work so far has been extremely useful, and it
> will remain so even if at the end of GSoC it's not in a state that
> every user can use it out-of-the-box.
> OTOH if I understood the recent discussion about merging and rebasing
> correctly your code itself has not been reviewed at all so far? In that
> case you should definitely expect the review process to take longer
> than you initially expect... Even without serious issues the review
> process for getting anything into LilyPond is somewhat time-consuming.
>
> So I encourage you to plan from the end backwards and don't push the
> possibly tedious and boring tasks of finalizing your work too much away
> .
>

That's a good point. Considering, too, that school is starting for me soon,
I probably should start finalizing things soon--a couple days from
now, even.

That said, once I begin finalizing, what would that entail? I'd imagine
something like the following:

   - First, I'd look at all the TODO's I've left myself and try to resolve
   them as best I can.
   - Then, I'd rebase my commits onto the latest master and make the
   history a little nicer. For instance, I'd combine some commits that were
   incremental changes towards a particular goal, so it'll be easier to judge
   each facet of my work at a glance.
   - Then, I'd make changes to LilyPond's docs. This includes any internal
   comments that may have become outdated.
   - Then, I'd take all your feedback regarding my commits, to make sure
   there aren't any last-minute typos.
   - Then, I'd run tests to make sure everything works as intended and can
   be added to LilyPond. I believe we have a suite of regression tests for
   this, so I guess I'll learn how to run that.
   - Once everything checks out, as Jean suggested, I'll write a blog post
   on lilypondblog.org, summarizing my work, what I learned on the way, and
   where things need to head next for SMuFL on LilyPond.
   - ...and it looks like that post can double as my required GSoC summary,
   as long as I get it in by the 23rd!

That's the best process I can think of, but let me know if I'm missing
anything.

Thanks,
Owen