Hey David, I saw this about work you've done on the emacs Lilypond mode. Is the new code base available anywhere and is it usable?
On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 7:37 AM, David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org> wrote: > > Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse > oculis meis vidi in ampulle pendere, et cum > illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; > respondebat illa: άποθανεΐν θέλω. > > [I saw myself with my own eyes the Cumaean Sibyl hanging in a bottle, > and when the boys said to her "Sibyl, what's your desire?" she answered > them "to die is my desire", a quote from the Satyricon most well-known > from the starting lines of T.S.Eliot's poem "The Waste Land"] > > When granted a wish by Apollon, the Sibyl of Cumis, one of his > priestesses and seers, asked for eternal life. Not having asked for > eternal youth or health as well, she eventually withered and shrank > until she would fit in a bottle, never able to die. > > Age: 50 > > Blessed with great analytical talents but without the matching stamina > to engage them with anything that does not interest me, I haven't been > able to do any serious mental work that isn't fun. An early attempt to > escape the problems from depending on unreliable gifts by doing an > apprenticeship in a bakery was shortlived since my body engaged in its > own version of obsessive compulsiveness by turning allergic against most > of anything to be found in a bakery within half a year, a fate that the > physicians predicted to be rather likely for most work of my hands. So > I took up Electrical Engineering and managed to finish a diploma with > the help of coeds (which consisted in dragging me to practice sessions > where I "helped" them figure out the stuff from lectures that flummoxed > them, and with organizing call services so that I would not miss > deadlines and exams). A later PhD never saw the completion of the > thesis, actually sort of a pity as the work was pretty novel. > > The ability to pull through and complete stuff tends to be rather > important in programming jobs, so my career ended up very spotty. The > last few years, I have spent living off the donations of various > LilyPond users and programmers, a somewhat embarrassing endeavor as I > often get locked up in less productive phases and don't communicate well > (it turns out that medication making me more productive at the same time > makes me completely unbearable and the other way round, and the vitally > necessary blood pressure medication makes stuff more difficult, so I > just stay off the psychopharmaceutics as there is no direction in which > they would be unilaterally helpful). Since I haven't properly > maintained "customer relations" for the last few years (another > "tedious" task), at the current point of time my "income" does not cover > the costs of living in spite of several high-profile LilyPond figures > supporting me with sums that do not reflect our relative merits. > > Living in a small town in Germany on the premises of my girl friend's > riding school (another venture that's not particularly good at matching > the bills), I spend most of my time at the computer, most of the time > working on something LilyPond related. > > With a computing background starting with punched cards, a computer with > various self-built extensions and programs (I could only start using > CP/M after I've written my own boot loader and BIOS), I am pretty good > at understanding low-level programming problems. > > At the same time, it offends my sense of design when implementation > details leak into a system such as LilyPond, so much of my work is > invested in making programming models work out cleanly and transparently > and making "naive expectations" match the actual behavior by changing > the behavior rather than the expectations where it makes sense. > > I've been playing violin from young age, added guitar to the mix, have > sung in various choirs (a natural bass-baritone, I've sung either alto > or high tenor in the last years as my falsetto is the best developed > part of my voice and I prefer staying mostly above the break) and have > taken up accordion a few years ago (as finger-style guitar was a > mismatch in carrying power for chansonette performances). > > I've recently made Emacs understand Midi input but found that I just > don't have the time and focus to work on bringing LilyPond's Emacs mode > into the 21st century. Which is a real pity as the current code base > (not yet generally available) is quite nice for entering material but > then breaks down in usability for doing line-wrapping, quick entering of > durations and other editing stuff. > > So the number of unfinished projects and loose ends is constantly > growing for me in spite of doing LilyPond full time already, and > consequently my bad conscience on not getting stuff done is also a > pretty constant fixture, making every moment equally bad for asking for > support of my work. > > I probably share the problem of a lot of programmers of free software: > the time working on the program does not leave a lot of time for working > _with_ the program, so it's still important to get feedback from other > more arduous users. Preferably without scaring them away forever. > > -- > David Kastrup > > _______________________________________________ > lilypond-user mailing list > lilypond-user@gnu.org > https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list lilypond-user@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user
