Re: Pd for dummies

[Gregory Taylor <gtaylor@xxxxxxxx>]

From: Michael Nisi <_@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

>developers don't like to write docs, that's true. the bigger problem though 
>is that users don't read them.

It seems like every time I'm tempted to say this out
loud, some newbie will email with a complex question
that very strongly that they *are* reading and paying
attention to the stuff that we've spent time trying
to explain clearly.

I'm more inclined to say that perhaps some users are,
for reasons that escape me personally, lots more likely
to fire off an overly broad question to lists at large
*before* they've spent the 24 seconds it takes to tear
through a word search in a PDF document or to look at
an index or table of contents. It's baffling even if
it does provide the occasional bit of irritainment when
done with sufficient cluelessness. Generally, many
people *do* occasionally figure out that documentation
is worth looking at, and that a little prior research
allows one to ask more specific questions that are
more likely to be answered in useful ways. It's just
that not everyone arrives at those conclusions at the
same rate, and that in mailing list communities, the
clueless questions in any given timeslice may appear
predominant due to the fact that those persons who
*do* figure out about reading documents tend  to 
post less, and are thus less well represented in
any given digest.

Perhaps there's a nice, neat sociological explanation
that describes shifts in the status of information
rather than perceived illiteracy and indolence. Ubi
caritas, as far as I'm concerned. :-)

Perhaps the Supercollider for Dummies project is
hampered somewhat by the quality and usefulness of
James' original examples; for many people, they 
are full of useful stuff and really provide nearly
everything that's necessary to learn, if one is of
a certain cast of mind. I am, unfortunately, not always
one of those people, but I do think that the bar is
set pretty high for the expectation of quality. SC is
a fine piece of work throughout.

gregory "Hi! I'm new to SuperCollider and I haven't
really read the docs or anything and I was wondering
if someone could show me how to copy the Native Instruments
Spectral Delay or send me a patch that does it...." taylor

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