Good day Curtis and others...
>Hi everyone,
>
>Firstly I would like to respond to Herbie Glünder's comments about
>maintaining compatibility versus elegant software design.
>
>Herbie Glünder wrote:
>
>> ImageJ is used by thousands of scientists as a valuable tool (and it was
>> conceptualized as such) and there exist enormous amounts of macros and
>> plug-ins that are used regularly over long periods of times without the need
>> of adaptation. Most of us use ImageJ as a tool and besides many other
> > features we love the ease of rapid prototyping by using the macro language.
>
>I absolutely agree, for multiple reasons. From a purely pragmatic
>standpoint, to be successful, a redesigned ImageJ would almost certainly
>need to maintain compatibility with the vast body of existing work.
>
>> From a programmers point of view things may look different, but this is an
>> old story going back to the early days of computers when there were people
>> who wanted to use computers to solve problems and those who wanted to refine
> > programming...
>
>The dichotomy is not absolute. In many cases, with care it is possible to
>have both. Moreover, I argue that to maximize ImageJ's effectiveness at
>"solving problems," we must worry about "refining programming." Many of
>those involved in this thread are not merely OCD design-obsessed programmers
>-- our drive to retool the codebase specifically stems from encountering its
>limitations in solving our problems. A complete refactoring, done
>thoughtfully, would greatly benefit not just programmers, but users as well.
Don't forget that I wrote:
"for me there is only one answer: Go ahead!
... but please leave ImageJ as is."
After reading the comments in this thread I should simply like to add:
Lets wait and see if and when any re-conception
of ImageJ will reach thousands of regular users.
(At present this list has more than 1600
recipients and I guess the number of users to be
at least 5 times larger).
Please keep in mind that there are many users of
IJ-macros/plug-ins who have no idea about how
they are coded. If some change of IJ requires to
adapt macros--even if its a single char--then
hundreds of users will be unable to further
evaluate their data. Evidently the vast majority
of users is happy with the features provided by
ImageJ.
Time will tell whether an alternative version of
IJ will ever gain comparable success. Did anybody
think about (long term) support?
Again: "Go ahead" (et bonne route!)
--
Herbie
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http://www.gluender.de>
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