[josm-dev] Spaghetti code

[GeoJ]

Stefan Breunig wrote:
> If classes need fixing, why not just add a new one
> "classThatNeedsFixing2" with a proper implementation. Change JOSM to
> use "2" in various places, let it bake and see if it needs any
> additional feature and mark the old class as depricated and advise
> develops to use "2" instead. That way all new devs will likely use "2"
> and some other references to the old code will be changed as well. 

This leads to two different implementations that have to be maintained
as long as version n+1 has not replaced version n - not a desirable
state from my point of view.
IMHO Java already contains the perfect feature for step-by-step
code-evolution: @Deprecate annotations/javadoc comments - see here for
details:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/javadoc/deprecation/deprecation.html

You can mark fields and methods as "deprecated" so that other developers
see (compiler warning) that this element is subject to be changed to
private/deletion but it is still usable and old code works without
modification.

GeoJ