[gdal-dev] image-io extension

Sun Dec 12 16:03:33 EST 2010

Ciao Even,
I am neither trying to cut it short nor I was anyhow offended by your
response but you are email
is drawing is essence from a few  misunderstandings which I would like
to clarify before this thread takes more time/space:

-1- Viji is trying to package the development version of imageio-ext,
which is not (atm at least) used in any official version of geotools
and/or geoserver. He is actually playing with the trunk of
imageio-ext..
-2- I never intended to propose anything to be committed in GDAL at
this moment, especially the patch that Viji has been looking at. As we
have done in the past we will try to propose changes only when they
are really needed
and of interest for the community
-3- Our goals in the short/mid terms with regards to the GDAL JNI
bindings are confined to a user standpoint, with the possibility to
propose few isolated patches as we have done in the past. We do not
foresee resources for broader involvement.

Summarising if Viji wants to package imageio-ext he is looking at the
wrong version. 1.0.8 should work with gdal 1.4.5 as it is
(mainstream?). I will have daniele confirm this tomorrow.

Ciao,
Simone.
-------------------------------------------------------
Ing. Simone Giannecchini
GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Founder

Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054  Massarosa (LU)
Italy

phone: +39 0584962313
fax:      +39 0584962313
mob:    +39 333 8128928

http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://geo-solutions.blogspot.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/simonegiannecchini
http://twitter.com/simogeo

-------------------------------------------------------

On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 12:41 AM, Even Rouault
<even.rouault at mines-paris.org> wrote:
> Le vendredi 10 décembre 2010 10:27:49, Simone Giannecchini a écrit :
>> Ciao Even,
>> I have asked daniele to make those changes (which have not been reviewed
>> yet) in order to move away from the explicit usage of Vector and HashTable
>> in method signatures in favour of using the respective interfaces (List
>> and Map). Daniele can add more as needed...
>
> Simone,
>
> I can understand that you don't like using Vector or Hashtable in the API you
> expose in imageio-ext, but you can also understand that it doesn't make a very
> compelling reason to take your changes in the hope that they also fit the needs
> of other users of the GDAL Java bindings.
>
> You could certainly convert the Vector into an ArrayList on your side and
> "hide" that. Not ideal, but there's no technical obstacle.
>
> The GDAL Python bindings are also well-known for not being very "pythonish" by
> some aspects (and some of those aspects can be sometimes very very painful !),
> but it doesn't prevent them from being used successfully by a pretty
> impressive amount of people.
>
>>
>> As you mentioned this change can break old code, but it should
>> make the java bindings more ... javaish :).
>
> I'd note that what is "javaish" or not is subject to trends that evolve over
> time. Sometimes it is not bad to wait for the dust to settle ;-)
>
> And concerning :
>
>> On the other hand GDAL is well known for the rock solid stability of
>> its API
>
> Indeed, I prefer that the bindings are stable (and sometimes expose rough
> corners due to past choices). Being "javaish" isn't an aim per se.
>
>> but yeah this "instability" would apply only to the Java
>> bindings and would follow a well known practice. """
>
> I respectfully disagree with you on this. For example, most API of the
> standard Java library dating back to the Java 1.0 era haven't been removed in
> Java 1.6. And by the way, neither
> http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/Vector.html nor
> http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/Hashtable.html mention
> those 2 to be deprecated at all ;-)
> Now, you'll certainly find other Java projects that might have different habits
> of course.
>
> Let's be realistic : interface breakage can happen sometimes. But IMHO the
> reasons must be very compelling (totally broken/unusable interface). And I'd
> expect a consensus on this, or at least support from a majority of users.
>
>>
>> We have other changes in the queue which we might submit to your review
>> early next year, but this is another topic...
>
> If you wish that your changes to be integrated back into GDAL, I'm afraid this
> isn't the best way to proceed. It is not very efficient and enjoyable to review
> a code dump without prior discussion about its rationale and main orientations
> (especially when it involves API breakage). Basically, I'm just recalling a
> best-practice for collaboration with any FOSS project...
>
>>
>>
>> Viji , I don't think you need to use the patch you are referring to since
>> that is needed for imageio-ext 1.1 which has not been released yet.
>
> I'm afraid that the packagers of imageio-ext 1.1 will face difficult
> alternatives if your patch is still needed but not applied in upstream GDAL :
> - Applying your patch and thus forking from upstream GDAL as far as the GDAL
> Java API is concerned ? --> Most Linux distro (including Fedora unless I'm
> wrong) have a policy to stick to upstream as much as possible and only patch
> for serious reasons.
> - Applying a patch to imageio-ext to make it work with upstream GDAL ?
> Unlikely for the same reason as above and why would they make that effort
> instead of upstream imageio-ext ?
> - Finding a way to have a specific version of the patched GDAL Java bindings
> only used by imageio-ext ? Technically possible I guess by "duplicating" the
> java bindings (both the gdal.jar + the *jni.so) and embedding a specific
> version in imageio-ext package. But then, you will have to make sure they
> won't conflict in case someone wants to use both imageio-ext and "official" GDAL
> java bindings. I also doubt that a packager would want to go into that.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Even
>
>>
>> Ciao,
>> Simone.
>> -------------------------------------------------------
>> Ing. Simone Giannecchini
>> GeoSolutions S.A.S.
>> Founder
>>
>> Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
>> 55054  Massarosa (LU)
>> Italy
>>
>> phone: +39 0584962313
>> fax:      +39 0584962313
>> mob:    +39 333 8128928
>>
>>
>> http://www.geo-solutions.it
>> http://geo-solutions.blogspot.com/
>> http://www.linkedin.com/in/simonegiannecchini
>> http://twitter.com/simogeo
>>
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