Rationalize 'utils' and 'common' stuff
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Key: MAHOUT-178
URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/MAHOUT-178
Project: Mahout
Issue Type: Improvement
Affects Versions: 0.1
Reporter: Sean Owen
Assignee: Sean Owen
Priority: Minor
Every project needs a common area for code that is not obviously part of any
specific piece of the project, typically because it's used in many places. This
is good as it promotes reuse. I would like to make an explicit effort to
rationalize this project's approach to 'common', starting with some basic
reshuffling, which will then pave the way to unify more of the code that is
duplicated now (thinking: caches, distance measures, Hadoop integration, etc.)
Right now we have this common code in three places, when it seems like there
should be basically one:
- mahout-core: org.apache.mahout.utils
- mahout-core: org.apache.mahout.common
- mahout-utils
I suggest that of the two packages named above, 'common' is slightly
preferable; one could easily just merge these packages. I also would like to
ask whether it makes sense to have a mahout-utils module? It's like having a
mahout-core-core, in my opinion. It appears to serve exactly the same role as
the other utils/common package. Would it ever be used as a standalone build
product?
Renaming may sound like a trivial change, but I think the above is merely
symptomatic of several developers having independent ideas about where to stash
common stuff. I want to force the issue and push everyone's stuff together to
begin the hard but necessary work of refactoring the code base into something
more unified.
So far, I propose pushing all code together into org.apache.mahout.common. This
is enough of a big-bang that will break patches that I want to propose it, and
if agreed, plan when to commit.
(Also, shouldn't stuff like the distance measure classes be in a package?)
Anyway, partial patch will be attached shortly.
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