Re: long-term goals (was: Lines and Ties and Slurs oh my!)

[Graham Percival]

On Sat, Mar 01, 2014 at 07:07:39PM -0500, Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> >>> I’ve know someone at Carnegie-Mellon University who is well-connected
> >>> in the computer and music departments (he is both a composer and a 
> >>> programmer).
> >>> I approached him recently with the idea of getting involved with Lilypond.
> >>> 
> >>> He said:
> >>> 
> >>>> One possibility is that sometimes there are software engineering projects
> >>>> looking for tasks, so I might be able to point a class project at 
> >>>> Lilypond
> >>>> in the future.
> >>>> I'm curious if there's a short summary of the direction for large-scale 
> >>>> work on Lilypond.
> >>> 
> 
> With all due respect for everyone’s time, I am bringing what is in my opinion 
> an unprecedented opportunity to the Lilypond team — and I’ve got no response 
> worthy of bringing back to my contact.
> 
> Can nobody give me an “official” answer for him?

My guess is that people are leery of "inviting" newcomers who
might expect mentoring, when there is clearly no "mentoring spots"
available.  Our code base is notoriously difficult to learn, and
if we specifically send a list of tasks to a professor, in my mind
there's an implicit offer to welcome (if not teach) a student who
tries to work on one of those tasks.

This doesn't bode well for the long-term survival of lilypond, but
that's something that's been discussed off and on for at least the
past 8 years, so I don't expect any immediate change on this
matter.

- Graham