RE: transcribe notes

[Philip Thomas]

>On Tuesday 12 June 2012 23:41, Graham Percival <address@hidden> wrote:

>I'm afraid that my first reaction is "thanks, but no thanks".  See below.

>Be warned that the CG is not actively maintained.  I estimate that
>approximately 20% of the advice in the CG misleading, and 10% of the advice
>is harmful.  It was not intended to be harmful, of course, but when policies
>and the technical layout of lilypond development change but the CG is not
>updated, the end result can be worse than giving no advice at all.

>I cannot in good conscience encourage anybody to become involved with
>lilypond development at the present time unless they have a mentor.  It
>would, of course, be really nice if somebody like Janek offered to mentor
>you on this.

(...)

>At the present time, I doubt that many beginners notice the cheatsheet at
>all, expanded or not.  However, if the cheatsheet were improved, we could
>give it greater prominence, all the way to including it on the main doc page
>on the website (probably under the "regular use" heading).  I could see that
>being very useful, actually.

>The more I think about it, the more this seems like an excellent way to get
>into lilypond development.  But I still cannot honestly encourage you to do
>this unless you have an experienced mentor.

Hi Graham,

I get slightly mixed messages from what you say.

If I read what you say last, first, I get the feeling that an expanded and 
improved cheatsheet might be worth some work to see whether it turned out to 
look useful. I know that in my first spasm of experimentation with LilyPond a 
few years ago, I kept a printout of the then cheatsheet close at hand 
(annotated increasingly with time, but long since lost) and I referred to it 
frequently.

If that's correct, I guess your initial "thanks, but no thanks" is directed 
more to the possibility of my becoming a more serious contributor, with a 
virtual drive in my Windows environment to draft stuff with an unfamiliar text 
processor and create patches and use the git and stuff like that. I've had a 
look at the CG and, whether it's up-to-date or not, it looks pretty 
impenetrable to me at first sight, if not downright scary. I can't see me 
setting myself up as a contributor in that way at this stage, even with a 
mentor.

I'm inclined to try to knock together a draft expanded cheatsheet on my own 
account and float it (e.g. in PDF format) on the user list. If it generates 
interest, I can do some further work on it. If Janek (who, I can see from the 
many posts of his that I've read, is patently good-natured) is prepared to keep 
an eye on what I produce, that would be great, and hopefully others would also 
have something to say. If it finds sufficient favor over time, I can then ask 
for advice as to whether and how to proceed with a more formal contribution. On 
the other hand, if my drafts just produce yawns and/or jeers, they can be 
consigned to the arid and boring realm of failed endeavors, and I'll smile 
serenely.

Does my thinking seem to be in a sensible direction having regard to what you 
said?

Cheers, Philip