[josm-dev] Difference between JOSM and JOSM-NG

[Dirk Stöcker]

On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, Frederik Ramm wrote:

> Gerv also hinted at the fact that JOSM is written in a way that is
> somewhat untypical for Java, and whenever a newcomer to JOSM programming
> said "this is all bullshit let's refactor it wholesale" I told them to
> please find another project to refactor wholesale. I always thought that
> the peculiar way in which JOSM is done has a lot going for it and makes
> it easy to work with the code.
>
> That having said, if at any time someone who has already done a lot of
> JOSM development would step forward and suggest major changes, I believe
> that would be a whole different thing than coming from someone who has
> yet to submit a single patch.

Actually that's true for every project. I once refactored freeciv (a 
C coded game) to use correct header files and touched nearly every source 
file in there. freeciv had/has a pretty active development and they 
stopped patch acception for approx. one and a half day to get that done 
(Only 4 or 5 people had CVS account - I did not have). I programmed for 
freeciv half a year at this time. To a newcomer they would have said: Go 
away. And I would say the same to everyone.

BTW: I never would suggest or accept "major" changes. Every major change 
can be cut in pieces and introduced as smaller changes. This means you 
always have a stable working software compared to a large refactoring 
period. You have to write some intermediary code, but that also means half 
finished reworks (when the author no longer has time or interest) are 
better than nothing :-)

Ciao
-- 
http://www.dstoecker.eu/ (PGP key available)