Am 11.05.2009 um 18:38 schrieb Graham Percival: Something like LM 1.2 About the documentation?
(on the LR) "This book explains how to begin learning LilyPond, as well as explaining some key concepts in easy terms. You should read these chapters in a linear fashion.
(on the NR) "This book explains all the LilyPond commands which produce notation. It assumes that readers are familiar with the concepts in the Learning Manual."
Honestly, what else can we do? Add a maoing <blink> tag to the webpage, saying "you should read the documentation" ?
Unfortunately, there's really nothing we can do. We (as current internet and software users) have certain preconceptions about our understanding of how software and documentation work(1). Lilypond doesn't follow those ideas. I don't think any time or energy should be spent in making the software meet our expectations. We also have a certain amount of impatience when faced with the situation of having to learn something from scratch because all of our existing knowledge about software and documentation work is useless when it comes to lilypond. So, short of saying, when the download happens, "Forget everything you know about how to use software." and, "This program has no help, it only has a long documentation that you must read if you want to be able to use the software." I don't really think there's any way to avoid the "RTFL(earning)M" discussion.
We don't think of documentation as a means to learn something, documentation is now "help", in that, like the microsoft office assistant, you ask it a question, and it tells you the answer. This example, simplified though it may be, pretty well sums up how we use documentation these days.
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