I wanted to contact the GeoTools programming community about some ideas I
had about making it easier for new programmers to contribute new
unsupported modules to GeoTools. These ideas came from my involvement with
Julian on the Summer of Code Project.
I'm an experienced Java programmer with lots of time using version control
systemns like CVS and SVN. Despite this, it was a huge challenge to learn
both Git and Maven in order to contribute to GeoTools. Under normal
circumstances, I wouldn't have been worth the effort to me. I suspect the
same thing is true of other programmers that might otherwise contribute to
GeoTools.
What do you think about having GeoTools appoint an Unsupported Module
Mentor? This person could assist new GeoTools contributors in a number of
ways. This might include accepting source code contributions for new
modules, updating this source code when there has been changes, and
creating the pull requests for the changes to the unsupported modules in
GitHub.
In essence, the mentor would serve as a code gateway for programmers that
want to make modest contributions to GeoTools, but that don't want to
invest in setting up Git, GitHub and Maven for what might be a minor amount
of code. The metnor would try to shepherd unsupported modules to supported
status.
Let me know your thoughts. If this idea has merit, I'd be willing to serve
as the first Unsupported Module Mentor. In this way, other potential
GeoTools contributors could benefit from my pain this past summer. :]
If the community decides this is a horrible idea, I will not get hurt
feelings. :]
Landon
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