Hi all, I was thinking about contributing to CdC. But I had little shock from CdC source codes, it was like good old days on Delphi. So, I am going to rewrite CdC to Java. Things like unit testing, modularity, interfaces and documentation can be very usefull :-)
This is not impulse decision, I took 3 weeks for decision. I made little research in other planetarium to make sure, there is no variants to fork/extend. KStars are best, but still far cry from my expectations. Some libraries which I am going to use: * Spring beans - keep parts of programs isolated, greatly improve unit testing * Jide GUI components - set of good Swing components, soon will be opensourced - http://www.jidesoft.com * Java2d - drawing library, will be used for maps (hw acceleration, vectors...) * HSQLDB - small embedded java database, will store everything from stars to constellation lines * Mysql and Connector/MXJ - something like embedded mysql for java. I want use it for big catalogues * plugins from JEdit - simple yet powerfull plugin engine from JEdit. * BeanScript - simple scripting language for macros and small plugins Java offer some cool features, but main reason is to build good core for future exdending. I thing it will take one/two years to push this program to CdC level. Program will be open source, under GPL. Currently I am looking for help and advice. I can use this: * introduction to CdC source codes :-) * discussion about design and possible problems * data conversions (asteroids, constel lines..) * algorithms in java * website, wiki, forum and repository setup on sourceforge So, what do you think? PS: Delphi 1 was realy great, but it is 21st century :-)
