[josm-dev] Refactoring of the JOSM architecture vs. Plugins

[Gervase Markham]

Frederik Ramm wrote:
> How am I to know whether these people will really stay with JOSM after 
> they have been allowed to refactor it to their heart's content? 

This suggests that you think that a) they all want to refactor it in
different incompatible ways and b) they might want to do it as some sort
of academic exercise, rather than as a prelude to doing something useful
and adding features. I don't think either of these things is true.

> true conviction that many things will actually be *harder* to do once 
> they've done their work, not *easier* (especially for programmers who 
> are not Java experts). 

Why do you think that this is the case?

Refactoring is supposed to make code easier to understand for everyone,
not easier to understand for code ninjas and harder to understand for
the general population. Do you think that it's impossible to make JOSM's
code easier to understand and work with for everyone?

> Will I, as the JOSM maintainer, be able to count 
> on these people to actually do the important work (i.e. adding features, 
> fixing bugs and so on) AFTER they have turned JOSM inside out - or will 
> they just continue to find reasons why they cannot contribute to JOSM as 
> it is, or (even worse) move on to refactor something else, thinking 
> they've improved JOSM when in fact they have made life more difficult 
> for the existing developers, all with the promise that it will surely be 
> easier to attract new ones?

Why do you think refactoring will make your life more difficult?

> JOSM is currently designed in such a simple fashion that I can honestly 
> ask someone who is only a C++ or Ruby or whatever programmer to 
> implement features. 

Genuine question: how often does this happen?

What makes you think that best practice in other OO languages (with
which these people will hopefully be familiar) is very different from
best practice in Java?

> improving JOSM on a number of issues. I'd rather have ONE person like 
> Dirk than TWENTY people telling me how they would like to contribute but 
> unfortunately cannot because they don't like JOSM's design.

How about one person like Dirk and twenty people all contributing
because the design has been cleaned up?

> I'm not saying this is set in stone but I'm also unwilling to offer JOSM 
> as some sort of playground where people may play out their design fetishes.

Who has suggested that this is their plan, or given any indication that
this might be what they are up to?

Who do you know who refactors code as an end in itself?

Gerv