[GRASS5] A naive opinion on how grass *should* work

[Russell Nelson]

Glynn Clements writes:
 > Again, you can change the actual region boundaries at any time with
 > g.region.

Aha!  That wasn't obvious to me.  I thought that, because GRASS was
asking me for the default region for the location, that I needed to
set it before loading anything.  Newbies make up these weird
requirements and restrictions all the time.  Why?  Because they're
trying to make sense of the world.  Children do the same thing when
they're really young.  My daughter refused to wear pants when she was
very young because "they make me a boy".  I think she *really* thought 
that she had to wear dresses in order to remain female.

 > > It didn't get built on my machine because libgdal was missing.
 > 
 > By default, r.in.gdal should be built regardless of whether you have
 > libgdal. However, it won't actually run unless libgdal is present.

Yes, I thought it was built improperly because it didn't run.

 > >  > For example the issue of adapting the region
 > >  > to displayed map (as Carl has mentioned before) would drive you crazy
 > >  > if you are doing some modeling using a larger number of maps with
 > >  > different extent and resolutions and you need to preview those maps,
 > > 
 > > Wait a second.  You mean that the region is only used for viewing??
 > 
 > No. As well as viewing, the region is also used when generating new
 > raster maps (which is probably *the* most important function of
 > GRASS).

Double aha!  Okay, so I suggest these changes:

1) don't ask for a default region.  If a program needs one, it should
   say "Please set the region that this program should write to using g.region".
2) if there is no default region, then
   a) the first d.WHATEVER should set a region for the monitor (and
      say "No default region.  Using a region that fits the WHATEVER".)
   b) it should stay set until d.erase, and
   c) if a data set is displayed but no part of it overlaps the
      monitor's region, then the displaying program should say so.
      "No part of this dataset was in the region".

I think some people are going to say "Well, but if you'd only *learn*
how to use GRASS, you wouldn't *want* these features."  They're
probably right, but they're already past the steep part of the
learning curve.  They've forgotten what it's like to be totally
clueless.  I'm already starting, which is why I'm being so
vociferous and voluminous.  Newbie experiences are precious because
they're not repeatable.

-- 
-russ nelson              http://russnelson.com | Okay, enough is enough!
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