[kepler-dev] kepler source reorganization

[Matt Jones]

I chatted today with Shawn a bit and he relayed the gist of a 
conversation with Ilkay and Xiaowen: they'd like to reorganize the 
source code repository a bit.  The proximate cause is the desire to have 
a utility class be accessible across the kepler project, and they felt 
the current util.* package was too generic.  Instead, they propose using 
our new domain name to create:

org.kepler-project.util.*

for utility classes.

I think this is a good idea, and would allow us to transition the rest 
of the code to a functional package naming scheme rather than a 
project-oriented naming scheme, which I think is sorely needed 
(especially as the number of contributing projects continues to grow). 
For example, there are currently actors that manipulate geospatial data 
in several packages: util, org.ecoinformatics.seek.gis, org.geon, and 
probably other places.  This makes it difficult to find all of the GIS 
actors, which would be easily remedied with a functional classification.

Even though I think reorganizing is a good idea, it is also fraught with 
risks to productivity.  Therefore, I think developing a organizational 
plan and a transition strategy would be prudent.  So, if nobody objects, 
we will begin the process of developing a these proposed changes, post 
them for review, and gradually implementing them.  The first such change 
would be to create src/org/kepler-project as an eventual root for all 
source code.

Comments appreciated.

Matt
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Matt Jones                                     jones at nceas.ucsb.edu
http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/    Fax: 425-920-2439    Ph: 907-789-0496
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS)
University of California Santa Barbara
Interested in ecological informatics? http://www.ecoinformatics.org
-------------------------------------------------------------------