[vtk-developers] Adding ComputeArea() to vtkTriangle

[Bill Lorensen]

I agree with David C,

In the olden vtk days we had many "not implemented yet" methods. A
complete frustration for users.

Bill

On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 10:18 AM, David Cole <david.cole at kitware.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 9:53 AM, David Doria <daviddoria+vtk at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Per Ken's suggestion, I am trying to implement a virtual double
>> ComputeSize() function for vtkCell.  There are a lot of cells! Many of which
>> I have no idea how to get their size. Is it acceptable to somehow commit
>> these changes without having all of them implemented? Something like a
>> filler "return 0" and a comment "this function has not yet been
>> implemented"?
>> The idea would be that then the framework is setup, so when a developer
>> who is familiar with the particular cell subclass sees the missing
>> implementation, they could easily fill it in.
>> Thoughts?
>>
>
> I don't think you should commit stuff that's half-(or any other fraction
> less than 1)-done unless there is somebody who will commit to pounding out
> the remainder in the very short term (days).
> If you can't do all existing subclasses, than it might be a better strategy
> to develop patches against CVS HEAD and attach them to an issue in the bug
> tracker until such time as the patch is complete.
> Otherwise, we'll end up with a half-done thing in the next release.
> One good idea for ensuring completeness on a task like this is to give the
> base class virtual a no-op implementation (return -1 even) but to put a
> "vtkErrorMacro" in it so that when it does get called, the developer who
> encounters it knows immediately what must be done to eliminate it.
> A message like:
> "vtkCell subclass is missing a ComputeSize implementation, please add to "
> << classname
> would be a great way to do it incrementally via patches in the bug tracker.
>
> HTH,
> David Cole
>
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