[Proj4j] Did some homework

[Fred Pospeschil]

Martin,

I went over all of your code and did a lot of thinking about it while I sailed 
the briny deep.  I'll split up my thoughts so the emails don't get too long.

I took a look at the OSGEO web page to see if it would be a source for solutions 
I am looking for and a home for what I hope to develop.  Other than your effort, 
it does not appear to line up very well.  The OSGEO thrust appears to be very 
aligned with the OGC standards and, as a result, the higher end GIS type of 
functions and applications.  I did not find any mention of interest in general 
map making - probably too elementary to be interesting.  What I have in mind 
would probably be classified by OSGEO as "map making for dummies".

As a result, it appears that I will have to find a different home for the bulk 
of what I hope to address.

As for your effort, I can see myself trying to document the projection.java part 
of your effort and maybe building a "GUI to visualize projections on the globe" 
providing I can use JBuilder to develop the GUI application.  I have taken 
another look at Eclipse and Net Beans and find them incompatible with my longer 
range efforts.  Plus, I do not what to shift over to the SWT.

Although I plan to use Java for my project, I want my illustrating code to be as 
non-Java as possible so the code will be meaningful to non-Java programmers. 
However, that is not to say that I will not develop Java classes which 
encapsulate the essence of the concepts and approaches illustrated with the 
minimally-Java code.

Depending on how you eventually configure your code I may also be able to 
document the ellipsoid aspects as well.  Anything outside of the basic 
projection and ellipsoid code is of no use in what I am intending to address.

When I began work with Jerry's code I looked at doing javadoc but rapidly came 
to the conclusion that it would fall far short of what was needed - as most 
javadoc seems to do.  While javadoc is better than nothing, in many cases it is 
not much better than simply reading the code - especially for getters and 
setters.  It seems to have its most value when the class you are looking at 
inherits deeply - then it helps in tracking the inheritance chain.  The JavaDoc 
system support the higher levels of documentation, however, most programmers 
tend to ignore doing it.

Is the general approach I used in the document I sent you acceptable for your 
project?

Is it acceptable that I not try to document anything other than the 
Projection.java and ellipsoid.java classes until you get things further along? 
I sense there is still a lot of flux in your code.

At this point I do not see myself getting involved in the type of testing you 
are currently working on.  I am willing to continue to do testing to see if the 
projection code will generate graticules/maps which generally match the 
illustrations in the manuals and books which are considered to be written by 
authorities.  I would provide you with graphic examples of error conditions.  Is 
this acceptable?

Fred