[Scidavis-contributors] New project lead

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to introduce myself. I don't know how many of you are
still actively involved in SciDAVis, but for better or worse, I have
taken over managing SciDAVis from Tilman.

I do manage a few other SourceForge projects, so I do have a way of
doing things. If you don't like any particular way, please speak
up. Projects evolve over time, and develop their own traditions.

The first thing I would like to do is switch to the new look'n'feel
used on SourceForge. All my other projects have been switched, and
assuming that most people here are inactive, and there will be some
new blood coming in, now seems opportune.

Then there's other things about me. I'm a big fan of regression tests,
it really aids refactoring, and helps catch a lot of stupid
mistakes. Whilst I don't do the full TDD, I do agree that tests
ideally should be written at the same time as code development, rather
than an afterthought. Although afterthought is better than nothing.

I'm also a fan of doxygen as a means to understand code. I will be
looking at improving the doxygen-friendliness of the code comments,
assuming they're not perfect already :).

I'm also a fan of RAII - in particular minimising the use of pointers
on interfaces, using smart pointers to manage things on the heap, and
putting things on the stack when they don't need to be on the
heap. This leads to better control of resource leaks, and better
exception safety. We need to get away from bare news and deletes.

Otherwise, I'm pretty code-style light. Coders do have different ways
of approaching things, and it is an impediment to getting stuff done
to have to constantly think whether a piece of code matches some
length coding style manual. Provided coding is done cleanly,
self-documenting where possible, commentry on any tricky bits, one
ought to be able to deal with another coder's style.

That's all for now. I have to admit, I haven't even checked out the
code yet, let alone built it for the first time, so I don't know what
I'm getting myself in for!

Cheers

-- 

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Prof Russell Standish                  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics      hp...@hp...
University of New South Wales          http://www.hpcoders.com.au
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