[GRASS-dev] terminology issues in grass7

[Paul Kelly]

On Fri, 12 Jun 2009, Hamish wrote:

> As Michael mentioned, any difference in opinion probably arises from the
> native English speakers vs. not. Whereas the non-native speakers take a
> much more literal view of the word than the native speakers would. I
> would expect native speakers to consider the word first and foremost an
> abstract idea and not explicitly as cartography (and thus have no problem
> adapting their brains to GRASS's usage, as it's a completely natural idea
> for them). It's no reflection at all on the non-native speakers -- it's
> not at all surprising: foreign languages are taught in school as words
> next to a picture, simply as a noun. All nuance is lost and can take a
> lifetime to grasp.

This is a really interesting idea as it potentially explains the different 
points of view that have been expressed. For my part I have been genuinely 
puzzled by Martin's assertions that the term "map" is confusing for new 
users: personally (also as a native English speaker) I found the opposite; 
the concept that every raster and vector file could be considered a map in 
itself was really helpful to me in realising the power and versatility of 
the GRASS system.

> as for vector layer renaming, I'd continue on about how an abstract idea
> can be much better than an overly mechanical description if the analogy
> is just right

Perhaps a more abstract term that generalises the concepts of both layer 
and catset is needed here; unfortunately the more I think about it, the 
more "layer" seems to fit this need, so I'm not much help in this part of 
the discussion...

Paul