[GRASS5] setting the initial region

[Russell Nelson]

Mark P. Line writes:
 > has more than one input map? Wouldn't this ultimately lead to a great deal
 > of entropy in the user's database with potentially many different unnamed
 > regions being propagated onto output files, as it were?

I would like people to be able to load data, and have GRASS discern
the correct region for that data.  I expect that sophisticated users
will continue to find value in setting a default region other than the
one that GRASS has discerned.  Naive users will be rewarded with
success, sophisticated users will not be impeded.  Everybody happy!

 > Setting a region at start-up has the advantage of helping to keep all
 > useful regions organized and named.

It has the disadvantage of presenting the naive user with a question
which is 1) crucial to get right, and 2) impossible to answer.

The goal is to flatten out the GRASS learning curve, so that GRASS
proponents don't have to apologize for GRASS's usability problems.  At
the 2003 OSCON in San Diego, there was an "Open Source GIS" session
featuring all the cool things that you can do with GRASS.  Just about
the first thing out of the presenter's mouth was "Yeah, GRASS is hard
to use, but ...."  We've got to stop that by making the GRASS learning
curve less steep.

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