[josm-dev] Common presets for OSM editors?

[Dirk Stöcker]

On Thu, 25 Jun 2015, Frederik Ramm wrote:

> I can see that this discussion is not going to go anywhere, and instead
> simply irritate lots of people.

That's a developers list. It's designed to find pro & contra of different 
approaches. Users shouldn't be here and thus also not get irritated.

> Can we not just have a plugin that replaces all of JOSM's presets with
> those taken from some common-preset-github project in whatever language
> and fashion supported by the project (and add code to JOSM core that
> would allow the overwriting/removing of core presets by a plugin if
> required)?

That's already possible since years. Some people already do this. It does 
not mean anything, because that's a so small percentage, that it does not 
count at all. Same as for the people using editor imagery index with JOSM.

> Then people could decide for themselves which set of presets they
> prefer, and we wouldn't have to battle it out for them here.

To make that clear: I appreciate the goal to unify translations and 
presets. I made a major effort some years ago with some other translator 
(Christoph?) to improve german translation using Linie and Punkt instead 
of previous translations, because Merkaartor used that and it was simply 
better than JOSMs texts. Having common descriptions IS appreciated in 
English and translated form.

What I do NOT appreciate is the form to reach that goal proposed at the 
moment. Usually I let development flow in whatever direction it goes 
(because I trust the contributors with SVN access rights), but at least my 
task as maintainer (as I see it) is to prevent directions I consider 
wrong.

And it is not true, that this discussion necessarily is void. We had harsh 
discussions in the past and sometimes (not always) improvements came 
out of it.

I'd be happy if I would hear more from Richard, as he's actually part of 
the major other editor team and a first step should be that we actually 
find the differences and the common parts and see where working together 
is possible.

Regarding the "restart and throw away approach": I have seen this in 
OpenSource and my company life too often and I wont let this happen 
without a very good reason. It simply wastes to much work.

> In the long run, either everyone will use the github project set of
> presets and we can kiss the JOSM ones with all their hand-curated
> translation goodness goodbye, or everyone will keep using the JOSM
> presets becasue they are simply better. Who knows what will happen.

Every experience of the last years say, that it will not happen that 
external information will overrule internal stuff, as most users simply 
use the defaults.

What I want ATM is actually to prevent exactly what your propose: the 
"make another project and let it die" approach. This is what I expect to 
happen if it goes in this direction (also because of my personal 
opposition, as I'm aware of). Instead of that I'd like to see some maybe 
small improvements which actually help in the task of unification.

Ideas are:
- cross-verification of presets and english texts
- cross-verification of translations
- auto translation updates across the editors
- many many more.

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