[josm-dev] Loading JOSM+plugins into Eclipse for the first time.

[Dirk Stöcker]

On Sat, 3 Oct 2009, Ray Foulkes wrote:

> In summary, I am nervous about simply putting in a patch to stop this
> exception being raised. It would certainly solve my immediate problem
> using JOSM+livegps+surveyor, but I don't think that it would be doing
> the JOSM project a great favour for the future.

Well, time to tell you my view about software development:
- There is code development which is done without thinking about
   future and clean interfaces.
- There is development using easy design and having the more complex stuff
   in mind when designing, but only caring for more complex stuff when it
   comes up in reality.
- There is clean design using perfect structure.

If you go to a university they will tell you to use approach 3. Some 
programmers will tell you to use 1 (which is sometimes good for 
prototyping). I will tell you to use 1, 2 or 3 depending on situation :-)

You see the changes Jiri and Karl have been doing the last months to 
enable JOSM to handle larger datasets a lot better. Well, both of them 
currently move some JOSM code from point 1 to point 2, but with a specific 
goal in mind. They would surely have much less work when the design would 
have been correct from the very beginning, but the point is, that JOSM 
would probably not exist at all when design would have been perfect from 
beginning. Rewriting code is not bad in my eyes. Nobody should expect code 
to have a long life time. Code as well as requirements change over the 
time.

So when doing the livegps fix choose the best option you find, which
- very likely will not introduce more problems later,
- when necessary improves the general design without adding lots of
   useless overhead,
- FIXES THE ISSUE.

Thinking a bit about future is fine, but don't worry to much. You do not 
know in which direction JOSM will go, I do not know this, nobody knows. 
When we get problems we will care for them when they appear.

P.S. The suggest approach is no excuse for dumb decision. And also to be 
able to use the right approach in a specific situation usually needs some 
experience :-)

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