On 12/15/08 7:18 AM, "Han-Wen Nienhuys" <hanw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Try not to form mental models. Use the source instead.
Unfortunately, not very many of us understand the source completely, and so
we need mental models to work in LilyPond. Of course, our mental models
will be incorrect in some detail, and we'll need to revise them from time to
time.
But even if we use the source, we'll have to make mental models of the
source, and those may be incorrect as well.
Maybe I'm the only person who doesn't understand the full source code, but I
doubt it. Certainly developers should understand the source code when they
modify it, and understanding the source code is preferable to an incorrect
mental model, but the idea of documentation is to allow users to form
correct mental models about program operation WITHOUT reading the source
code.
So I believe that we SHOULD form mental models, based on the docs and our
experiences, and whenever there's a weakness in the mental model, it points
to a place to improve the docs.
Thanks,
Carl
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