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

Gervase Markham gerv at gerv.net
Sat Aug 23 09:37:33 BST 2008


Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Gervase Markham wrote:
>>> I haven't seen code designed by any of those calling for wholesale
>>> refactoring because of the "yuck" factor. 
>>
>> Apart from the JOSM-NG codebase, you mean?
> 
> Which is now discounted by the same people because it "doesn't fly"...

You're changing the subject. You said you hadn't seen code designed by
any of these people, and I'm pointing you at a large pile of it.

> heck, it would really not take long to get it flying, and would probably
> even be easier than trying to impose what you believe is good
> architecture onto JOSM.

Forking the software means forking the community and forking the effort.
No-one wants to do that. If it were easier to make JOSM-NG into a new,
well-architected, equally-featured JOSM than to do it to JOSM itself,
why do you think people are spending time trying to persuade you to
allow the latter?

>> If you want to allow programmers to contribute who are not familiar with
>> best practices in any language, then what you really seem to be asking
>> for is bad programmers :-) They aren't called "best practices"
>> arbitrarily, you know.
> 
> I'd go for second-best or third-best practices anytime if they achieve
> good results for the mappers. This is not a programming beauty contest.

You keep coming up with these false dichotomies. There are people saying
"I'd like to improve JOSM using best practice", and you seem to be
saying "No! Improvements with second-best or third-best practices only
here, please!"

> Your argument is that poor design can be rectified without losing
> contributors. This is what I doubt. In my eyes some aspects of JOSM's
> poor design actually enable mappers who know a bit of programming -
> maybe you would call them "bad programmers" because they don't know any
> best practices, in any language - to contribute. You say that the design
> discourages those that you would call "good programmers" from
> contributing. To me it is important that JOSM serves its users well, and
> JOSM's users are the mappers. 

Which programmers have come in here wanting to improve JOSM with good
design who are *not* also OSM contributors on the mapping side?

> So I'm trying to keep the entry barrier low, to allow as many as
> possible users to actually become programmers. I prefer a bad programmer
> with lots of mapping experience to a good programmer who is just that.

Again, the false dichotomies. Where are these good programmers who
aren't mappers? Petr is a mapper. I'm a mapper.

>> If your response was instead "well, let's see your first patch" then
>> they might not be gone so fast. :-)
> 
> I'll do that in the future, and add (in line with the Torvalds interview
> I quoted) that I'd like the first patches to be trivial ones not
> exceeding 20 lines ;-)

OK - great :-)

>> You think there are gangs of troublemaking Java hackers roving the
>> internet, looking for software projects to mess up the design of? Why
>> else do you think they'd be here?
> 
> Showing off. Demonstrating how great they are and how stupid the others.
>  It's a personality trait that many people share. 

And you are assuming it's present in anyone who comes along and wants to
improve JOSM in ways that are industry-accepted but not
Frederik-accepted? I suggest that doubting their motives from the start
isn't a good way to acquire contributors.

It seems as if someone who comes along and says "I'm an experienced Java
programmer, and want to improve JOSM in this way" is less trusted and
accepted than someone who comes along and says "I know nothing about
programming at all, and want to improve JOSM in this way." That seems
backwards.

Gerv






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