jared2982, on 22 July 2014 - 05:08 PM, said:
I'm with you on this one Herb. I like what I see in OR but it is still lacking where my interest are.
Emphasis added.
Let me insert a very speculative thought here -- s p e c u l a t i v e -- for your consideration. AFAIK, none of the programmers who have recently been working on OR reside in North America. Given the fact that this Open Source project is entirely of voluntary programmers it is natural that they do have considerable leeway to volunteer to work on certain features where they personally hold an interest. Yeah... there are purely technical issues as well as certain project priorities... neutral issues like fixing a particular bug, but that said there are also existing interests and knowledge brought to the table by each programmer, both of which may occasionally present themselves in the code with an understanding highly influenced by geography.
As an example, not long ago there was a lot of open thinking going on WRT a particular feature and throughout the discussion one could find the word platform appearing. Frankly, I'd be perfectly happy if there were no features whatsoever for platforms as none of the routes I have an interest in would be degraded by their absence by any amount greater than could be measured physically in microns... and IMO that would be true for most every route set in North America. But there it was in the discussion, seemingly a very important feature.
Of course I do know in many places in the world it would be a very important feature to include in routes and as such it does need to be in the code. My point in raising this example is not to be critical of the feature or the discussion around it but to show how the background of who is developing the code does have an effect on what features get developed and why they have the functionality (or lack of functionality) that occasionally makes one pause and think: The trend is right but it's not quite addressing my interests.
I think the solution is to hope more volunteers from North America join the team and contribute. More programmers mean more work gets done and more from North America means more perspectives, which could result in a more robust set of features... everyone could benefit from that.