For the past 6 days, we've performed an experiment: can we have a productive free-form discussion of syntax changes on lilypond-devel? I think the results are fairly clear: the answer is "no".
Our previous anonymous developer survey showed that mailing list civility is a major concern for some developers, and I am aware of other cases where arguments on the mailing list caused developers to reduce or even eliminate their volunteer work on lilypond. In the past week, at least one person has commented that this has discouraged him from working on LilyPond. I'll add my voice to that: after Waltrop, I was feeling extremely enthusiastic about our developer community and working on LilyPond. That enthusiasm is now almost completely gone. It's time to stop this disaster. On Thursday, I will create a new mailing list, with the tentative name "lilypond-syntax-explorations". Alternate name suggestions are welcome. The goal of that list is to have a civil, open discussion about possible modifications to the lilypond syntax. I am using the word "syntax" to refer to "anything inside a .ly file". If that name is inaccurate, then I will happily rename the list to "lilypond-language-explorations" or "lilypond-stuff-that-goes-inside-a-ly-file-explorations". The upmost goal of that list will be mutual respect and a positive discussion. We will not say that any idea is stupid, nor that the person suggesting it is not worthy of airing their ideas in public. I hope that the list will operate in a manner somewhat similar to improv theater -- we will work with any idea, rejecting nothing, trying to see how it could work. (I have not forgotten about Valentin's syntax list, but I want this to have the "official" seal of a gnu.org mailing list) If any discussion on lilypond-syntax-explorations leads to a particularly nice idea (ideally one with broad support on that mailing list), then I will champion it on lilypond-devel. When an idea comes to -devel, people can be as nasty as they want. I have not enjoyed the discussion from the past few days, but I would rather be the target of nastiness than anybody else. I will recommend that readers of lilypond-syntax-explorations do not read that email thread on -devel. If/when the proposal is nuked, I will take the complaints (if necessary, rewritten to be polite) back to lilypond-syntax-explorations for a constructive discussion about whether the proposal can be resurrected and modified. (if somebody on lilypond-syntax-explorations would like to champion their idea to -devel personally, I won't object as long as they know the danger) NB: nothing in the above is intended to stop David from doing his usual parser stuff. He is of course free to submit patches to the parser and have the normal arguments on -devel. - Graham _______________________________________________ lilypond-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-devel
