[josm-dev] first impressions

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 01/10/12 16:11, Oliver Raupach wrote:
> I mean, there's surely a reason for everything.

The main reason is that most of us are not Java developers by trade, but 
instead many of us are allround developers who happen to code Java among 
other things.

We also try to attract people from the general OSM hacker population to 
help out with JOSM, and we cannot count on these people to have 
state-of-the-art Java skills.

You will also find that reflected in the code, where more often than 
not, we prefer a simple implementation over one that you would be taught 
in a Java development course. We need to keep the learning curve down so 
even people who are not Java developers can write a plugin without first 
learning how to use the latest cool technologies or design patterns.

Having said that, if you truly believe that someone with knowledge of 
only Makefiles, and neither ant nor maven, will find it easier to 
understand maven than to understand ant, then maybe we should indeed switch.

I have my own ideas about the usefulness of continuous integration in a 
system with about 5 committers but I'll keep them to myself for now ;)

As for automated testing - we are an Open Source project and we can only 
make limited demands on the time of our contributors. If someone 
supplies tests - great. If they don't - we don't force a development 
methodology on our contributors.

Bye
Frederik