Re: transcribe notes

[Philip Thomas]

Blast! Resubmitted with apologies -- sent this a short while ago with an inept 
subject heading. Sorry, Philip

_________________________________

Graham Percival wrote:

> I cannot in good conscience encourage anybody to become 
involved
> with lilypond development at the present time unless they have a
> mentor.

David Kastrup wrote:

>I would 
have no qualms encouraging people
>into trying to get involved.
>
>They can expect some friction, naturally, work they 
do unnecessarily.
>That's a possible source of frustration.  It can be minimized by asking
>for feedback.  Now if 
things are as bad as to make 80% give up
>eventually, it means that 20% eventually manage to contribute.
>
>20% is more 
than the 0% we get following your recommendations.

Graham Percival wrote:

>That's because you are an excellent 
programmer, mathematician, and
>all-round "technical guy" who would have no trouble learning git
>if you didn't know it 
already.  I am not -- at best I'd say that
>I'm a good programmer, almost competent mathematician, and
>passable 
"technical guy".  So I have a great deal of empathy for
>people who have difficulty with those.
>
>More to the point, I 
have experience mentoring over 20 people for
>lilypond doc work.  I *know* that people find it difficult.  I
>know that 
people find it difficult even when somebody else takes
>care of all the git stuff for them!  If you want me to listen 
to
>anybody who says "oh, there's some friction, but just tell them to
>jump in", then mentor at least 5 people who 
stick around for at
>least 3 months.


David Kastrup wrote:

>Now if things are as bad as to make 80% give up 
eventually, it
>means that 20% eventually manage to contribute.

Graham Percival wrote:

>At the "karma cost" of 
wasting the time and effort of the 80%.
>I'm not willing to pay that cost -- especially when we could cut
>that in half 
with 10-20 hours of prep work.
>
>[...] I want to get the
>reputation of treating lilypond volunteers well, since that 
will
>encourage more people to volunteer.  By discouraging people from
>having a hard time now, I'm gambling on a long-
term benefit in
>that when the CG is better and we actively recruit volunteers,
>more people will step up.

I wasn't 
expecting this to be a tension-free exercise, especially having followed some 
other recent threads with interest. Nor 
am I going to deflate if an expanded cheatsheet doesn't materialize or doesn't 
attract any interest. I'm not especially 
tough-skinned, but I have some time on my hands and the challenge appeals to 
me. Equally, however, I don't feel 
inclined, at least at present, to dive into what for me would be the LilySwamp 
of Texinfo, Lilydev and git.

What I 
would like to attempt, for my part, is to make some contribution from the 
perspective of a (comparative but not utter 
beginner) user of the non-programmer variety, and it seems to me that expanding 
and improving the content of a 
cheatsheet might be both useful and within my capacity to achieve.

While Graham and David may not see eye-to-eye on 
some questions of approach and how best to manage user contributions, I don't 
feel discouraged by what either of them 
has said so far as my working on such a task is concerned, so I intend to just 
do it, keeping my aims fairly modest, 
and see what the reaction is, if any, to the result. I don't think I need any 
technical mentoring at this stage, 
although I'll definitely be pleased to get feedback -- from anyone -- on drafts.

Cheers, Philip