[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Server Overhaul (was Re: Re: Split patch)

[Justin Moore <justin@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> It looks like a huge amount of the changes you made are code moving.

   Uh, *all* of the changes are code moving, except for adding the new
files to server/Makefile.am and a minor alteration of a data structure.
That's the whole point of these patches.

> I think that such code movements provides no real benefit.

   Of course this is a subjective, biased comment, but personally I think
the code movements provide great benefit.  It

- provides a much cleaner API
- modularizes the code into manageable chunks, and
- greatly improves code readability

   I get the impression that we never really "threw one away" a la Fred
Brooks, and the code shows it (quite painfully in some sections).

> For example it may turn out that the partition into settings and
> commands is useless/wrong because the unification needs another
> partition of the code.

   As in unification will require us to make another partition, or it will
require information from two partitions?  For the former, we just make the
partition, no big deal.  For the latter, I think that requirement would
show that we're going about the unification the wrong way.

> I'm not sure what you have "really" changed. Can you make a
> patch which just contains these changes?

   The changes *are* the code movement and modularization.  The full
series of patches would include the split function, along with tons and
tons of cleanups to the actual parsing code.  It would easily double the
size.  The patches in incoming are *only* the code rearrangement; once
it's been rearranged, *then* I'll worry about cosmetic cleanups.

> I may change my opinion about the mode moving if you find interceders
> (people which agree that this is good) for this idea.

   Well *I* think it's a good idea. :)

   Seriously, though, the cleaner the code, the more easily we'll get new
people willing to hack on it.  Again, there are parts that are a *BIG*
mess (*cough*theAI*cough*) but only a few that I'm willing to touch. :)

-jdm

Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0129
Email:  justin@xxxxxxxxxxx