X-Git-Url: https://git.donarmstrong.com/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=Documentation%2Fuser%2Fpreface.itely;h=d82632e77f55985fd26339759a26318fe4cdb1f5;hb=d31248d7770fb5770c2caacfb3547984bf8dcdc3;hp=7b1274f03f4922d9faaf4c2c5e19e11c564c0438;hpb=c4c5bf6febe39f3e4d25f52e517e9b91addcbdc0;p=lilypond.git

diff --git a/Documentation/user/preface.itely b/Documentation/user/preface.itely
index 7b1274f03f..d82632e77f 100644
--- a/Documentation/user/preface.itely
+++ b/Documentation/user/preface.itely
@@ -1,46 +1,59 @@
+@c -*- coding: utf-8; mode: texinfo; -*-
+@c This file is part of lilypond.tely
+@ignore
+    Translation of GIT committish: FILL-IN-HEAD-COMMITTISH
 
-@node Preface
-@unnumberedchapter Preface
-
+    When revising a translation, copy the HEAD committish of the
+    version that you are working on.  See TRANSLATION for details.
+@end ignore
 
-It must have been during a rehearsal of the EJE (Eindhoven Youth
-Orchestra), somewhere in 1995 that Jan, one of the cranked violists told
-Han-Wen, one of the distorted french horn players, about the grand new
-project he was working on.  It was an automated system for printing
-music (to be precise, it was MPP, a preprocessor for MusiXTeX).  As it
-happened, Han-Wen accidentally wanted to print out some parts from a
-score, so he started looking at the software, and he quickly got hooked.
-It was soon decided that MPP was a dead end. After lots of
-philosophizing and heated e-mail exchanges Han-Wen started LilyPond in
-1996.  This time, Jan got sucked into Han-Wen's new project.  The rest
-is, as they say, history.
-
-[TODO some more here.]
-
-LilyPond would have been a far less useful program without the input
-of incountable number of individuals. We would like to thank all users
-that sent bugreports, gave suggestions or contributed code.  We would
-especially like to thank the following people: Jean-Baptiste Lamy for
-providing Tablature support, Mats Bengtsson for the incountable newbie
-questions that he answered on the mailing list.  Chris Jackson for
-various piano support code, Heikki Junes for taking care of the
-Emacs-mode, Glen Prideaux for implementing lyric-phrasing.  Juergen
-Reuter for the ancient notation support, Rune Zedeler for many code
-improvements All translators that helped translate the error messages.
-Jeremie Lumbroso, 
+@c \version "2.12.0"
 
-@ignore
-  should mention many more people, these are from AUTHORS
-@end ignore
+@node Preface
+@unnumbered Preface
 
 
-We always maintain that wrote this program to satisfy our curiosity,
-to have fun together, to help people, but ultimately, LilyPond is a
-way to express our deep love for music. May it help you create lots of
-beautiful music!
+It must have been during a rehearsal of the EJE (Eindhoven Youth
+Orchestra), somewhere in 1995 that Jan, one of the cranked violists,
+told Han-Wen, one of the distorted French horn players, about the
+grand new project he was working on.  It was an automated system for
+printing music (to be precise, it was MPP, a preprocessor for
+MusiXTeX).  As it happened, Han-Wen accidentally wanted to print out
+some parts from a score, so he started looking at the software, and he
+quickly got hooked.  It was decided that MPP was a dead end.  After
+lots of philosophizing and heated email exchanges, Han-Wen started
+LilyPond in 1996.  This time, Jan got sucked into Han-Wen's new
+project.
+
+In some ways, developing a computer program is like learning to play
+an instrument.  In the beginning, discovering how it works is fun, and
+the things you cannot do are challenging.  After the initial excitement,
+you have to practice and practice.  Scales and studies can be dull, and
+if you are not motivated by others -- teachers, conductors or
+audience -- it is very tempting to give up.  You continue, and gradually
+playing becomes a part of your life.  Some days it comes naturally, and
+it is wonderful, and on some days it just does not work, but you keep
+playing, day after day.
+
+Like making music, working on LilyPond can be dull work, and on
+some days it feels like plodding through a morass of bugs.
+Nevertheless, it has become a part of our life, and we keep doing it.
+Probably the most important motivation is that our program actually
+does something useful for people.  When we browse around the net we
+find many people who use LilyPond, and produce impressive pieces of
+sheet music.  Seeing that feels unreal, but in a very pleasant way.
+
+Our users not only give us good vibes by using our program, many of
+them also help us by giving suggestions and sending bug reports, so we
+would like to thank all users that sent us bug reports, gave
+suggestions or contributed in any other way to LilyPond.
+
+Playing and printing music is more than a nice analogy.  Programming
+together is a lot of fun, and helping people is deeply satisfying, but
+ultimately, working on LilyPond is a way to express our deep love for
+music.  May it help you create lots of beautiful music!
 
 Han-Wen and Jan
 
 Utrecht/Eindhoven, The Netherlands, July 2002.
 
-