[GRASS-dev] Min. req. of programming language standard support, GRASS GIS 8

[Markus Neteler]

Hi Nicklas, all,

Thanks for the summary and pushing things forward!

Just one addition, for the sake of completeness:

On Wed, Feb 10, 2021 at 1:16 PM Nicklas Larsson via grass-dev
<grass-dev at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>
> First of all, thank you all for your feedback and contribution to this topic. I think it is really important to clearly state the "rules of the game" for going forward.
>
> Let me try summarise the need for this:
>
...
> - G7 has seen the transition from Python 2 to 3 [1]. Going forward, a final (official and unambiguous) dot for Python 2 need to be put with a statement of minimum support of a Python 3 version.

There was another big transition in the past, being worked on, if I
recall correctly, from 2002 onwards (we started discussions in
ITC-irst with Prof Giulio Antoniol) and implemented the final result
after many discussions in the repo in Januar 2006:

Source code conversion of K&R C notation to ANSI C, modifying almost
all GRASS GIS files:
- [details](https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/2006-January/020767.html)
- [scientific article](http://www.antoniol.net/wp-content/papercite-data/pdf/2006/04021333.pdf):
A Feedback Based Quality Assessment to Support Open Source Software
Evolution: the GRASS Case Study,22nd IEEE International Conference on
Software Maintenance (ICSM'2006),
- related source code changes:
    - [r18618](https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/changeset/18618),
    - [r18619](https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/changeset/18619),
    - [r18623](https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/changeset/18623),
    - [r18625](https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/changeset/18625),
    - [r18626](https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/changeset/18626),
    - [r18627](https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/changeset/18627),
    - [r18628](https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/changeset/18628),
    - [r18632](https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/changeset/18632),
    - [r18633](https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/changeset/18633)

It was a massive C change as you can see which we managed to generate
by eventually automating most of the conversion/update tasks.
We worked with Prof Antoniol and his team for a long time on this
topic and it was definitely worth it!

Best,
Markus

Other related references:
* Di Penta, M., M. Neteler, G. Antoniol, E. Merlo, 2005: A
Language-Independent Software Renovation Framework. Journal of Systems
and Software, 77(3), pp. 225-240. (IF 2005: 0.744),
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.140.4762&rep=rep1&type=pdf
* Antoniol, G., M. Di Penta, and M. Neteler, 2003. Moving to smaller
libraries via clustering and genetic algorithms. In CSMR 2003, 7th
IEEE European Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering,
Proc. IEEE Computer Society, 307-316,
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.58.988&rep=rep1&type=pdf
* Di Penta, M. Neteler, G. Antoniol and E. Merlo, 2002. Knowledge
Based Library Refactoring for an Open Source Project. IEEE Working
Conference on Reverse Engineering WCRE, Oct. 28 – Nov. 1, Richmond,
Virginia, USA. Proc. IEEE Computer Society, pp. 319-328.,
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.4.4165&rep=rep1&type=pdf

-- 
Markus Neteler, PhD
https://www.mundialis.de - free data with free software
https://grass.osgeo.org
https://courses.neteler.org/blog