[IPOL discuss] Software Guidelines, 3rd draft and path to adoption

[Nicolas Limare]

Hi everyone,

Some important changes occured since last draft in the guidelines, so
a new draft version is needed. I think this is the last one, so I'll
collect your feedback, and I think next week the guidelines can be
formally proposed to adoption to the editor-in-chief, editorial board
and scientific committee. One adopted, I propose that the guidelines
are enforced on every IPOL article whose review has not started yet,
and are proposed for every article in review (we can not change the
rules during the game).

The main change from the 2nd draft is that, as a clarification
suggested by Rafael, the programs MUST be able to read or write in one
of the PNG, TIFF, EPS, SVG, VRML, PLY pormats. If your program needs
another file format or if you think other (widely used, well defined
and useful) formats should be allowed, it is time to tell me. Adding
them to this list after the adoption of the guidelines will require a
revision.

The new draft is online:
-> http://tools.ipol.im/wiki/author/code/software_guidelines/
You can use the web check tool to see how practical these rules are
for your software. The tool is at its final address, with examples
(using make and cmake):
-> http://tools.ipol.im/pkg/

8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----------

Other changes since the 2nd draft are:
- code split at least 3 files: main(), algorithm, and non-reviewed
  stuff(*)
- no "All rights reserved" in the copyright attributions, because of
  the distribution licenses
- changelog in README.txt
- reworded 1/8 comment/instructin ratio as a "SHOULD target"
- reworded the "programming tricks" sentence, moved into the "code
  documentation" section
- reworded the "stack memory limit" part
- added tools to measure comment ratio
- reordered sections, better balance
    1. Packaging and Content
     1.1. Compressed Archive
     1.2. Archive Name, Program Name and Version
     1.3. File and Folder Names
     1.4. Hidden and Useless Files
    2. Implementation
     2.1. Source Code
     2.2. Programming Language
     2.3. Portability
     2.4. Dependencies 
     2.5. Compilation
     2.6. Usage and Input/Output
     2.7. Computing Resources
    3. Copyright, License and Patents
     3.1. Copyright Attribution
     3.2. Patent Warning
     3.3. License
    4. Documentation
     4.1. README.txt
     4.2. Readability 
     4.3. Implementation and Comments
     4.4. Example Data


(*) I will propose a way to indicate which code is reviewed later,
    with other extentions to these guidelines for automated build and
    test
-- 
Nicolas LIMARE - CMLA - ENS Cachan    http://www.cmla.ens-cachan.fr/~limare/
IPOL - image processing on line                          http://www.ipol.im/
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