[GRASS-user] grass70 and display monitor

[Roy Sanderson]

Dear Glynn

I have been very surprised by the discussion on the Grass user lists
explaining the end of the d.mon and associated d.rast, d.vect commands
in the new Grass 7 version.  I'd naively assumed that they were a
permanent feature of the Grass environment.  From what I understand,
their phasing out is primarily because to retain them would impose
considerable technical challenges in a new Gui environment, would not
match the philosophy behind Gui interfaces, and provide little real
benefit.

My concern is simply that of an end-user, administering a small network
of Ubuntu PCs running Grass, because I have found it a considerable
struggle to persuade existing users to upgrade to each new version of
Grass.  The proposed changes will undoubtedly make Grass more appealing
to new users, but long-term users will drag their feet.  I notice that
even Microsoft is learning the hard way the risks of changing the user
interface too radically in an upgrade.

As way of contrast, R has kept a high degree of consistency of the
interface for each new version, such that existing users have no
problems when upgrading, but its command-line only environment causes
massive barriers for new users who are only familiar with Gui software.
Is Grass able to make some sort of compromise between improving the
interface to make it more appealing to new users, whilst bringing its
existing users with it?

Best wishes
Roy

-- 
Roy Sanderson
Institute for Research on Environment & Sustainability
Devonshire Building
Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
r.a.sanderson at newcastle.ac.uk
0191 246 4835