[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> However, I just want to make sure that I am on the right track with
> it. Is what I did the "right" way to do it?
Can look into .39's tuplet spanner, it should look something better,
perhaps it will give you inspriration.
> I hacked this function with an incomplete understanding of what all
> the numbers really mean. I made guesses that work for now, but I
> would feel better if I understood this program better. In general, it
> would be WAY easier to code quality patches and contributions if there
> were more documentation of the internals of lilypond. I know that it
> is totally uninteresting to work on it, and that implementing new
> features is much more fun. However, I might suggest that a good
> internals document might pay off big time in new contributors. Lily
> is a huge, complex program. It has to be, due to the nature of the
> music typesetting program. Unfortunately, it is a daunting task
> to figure it all out in order to be a useful contributor. A document
> would make it so much easier. Plus, I could fix the problems that
> matter to me the most (mostly involving the setting of orchestral
> scores) without hassling you folks all the time and being at your
> mercy while my performances come up.
I fully agree. We all know that documentation is very important, and I
have tried to write solid docs of how it all works, but the big
trouble is: the moment I start writing, I realise a lot of things are
all broken and should be redesigned. Rewriting the internals then
takes up my time and also causes the documents to go out of date.
A second difficulty for me in writing documents is that most of the
internals make perfect sense to me. It's difficult for me to
formulate what the important aspects are, and what is difficult to
grasp. It is much easier for me to give a targetted answer to a
targetted question.
It is the same reason that writing normal documentation is hard for
me. I am very glad that Adrian Mariano has gathered lots of
information for the reference manual, and I think the manual is better
than what I alone would have achieved.
I have a counter proposal: I would like someone (you?) to be in charge
of a LilyPond internals document (a FAQ, HOWTO, whatever you want).
Whenever there is a technical question or a technical explanation on
the mailing list, this is put into the document. If we can keep this
thing alive for half a year, we probably have gathered enough material
for good documentation. In the same time, I can try to be your mentor
in explaining LilyPond. But *you* must ask the questions.
--
Han-Wen Nienhuys, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** GNU LilyPond - The Music Typesetter
http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/hanwen/lilypond/index.html
