Glen Mazza wrote:
Well, the number of patches and enhancements made to layout/rendering has only been about 2-3 per month in the 12 months that we've had AddLMVisitor. FOP won't finish at that rate, and that *will* affect the users.
I agree that FOP wont finish at its current rate of development! Not sure how to change this and still keep a roof over my head. LOL
In the 24 months preceding that change (i.e., the original design I'm recommending we return to), I believe it was several times higher, perhaps an average of 25 changes per month. Also, the developers at that time seemed to obtain a much higher grokkage of the layout/rendering code base.
The statistics dont tell the full story. The reason the patch rate was so much higher before the Visitor pattern was introduced is because Keiron (one of the main architects of the redesign) was allowed to work on FOP as part of his paid job, and he seemed to disappear not long before Victor started his modularization efforts. Also because the maintenance code had not yet been frozen (of course, you might not be including patches to branches in your statistics)
Nice things happen when you drop the IQ needed to work
in the code--and simplifications have a habit of
begetting more simplifications, as relationships that
were previously obscured/unknown become clearer.[1]
I tend to agree, but I personally dont find the Vistor pattern the reason the code is so complex. Its the getNextBreakPoss/addAreas methods in TextLM and LineLM that are scarey.
In other words, I may be able to propose even more simplifications after this on things I currently can't see with the code as it is. Let's try to get this system down to something that a 12 year old can finish in a weekend. (I believe Victor has one he can lend us as a guinea pig.)
Ouch!
At any rate, given that most FO's generate and/or return areas (per the Rec), I don't have a problem with one selecting and initializing its own LayoutManager. That is basically what happens anyway, even with the middle man in between.
I dont have a problem with that either. I remain -0 on this change.
Chris
