[GRASS5] 5.7/6.0: some considerations

[Michael Barton]

I agree. My hat is off to Markus and Radim for taking the lead in making
GRASS such a high quality piece of software. People are pretty amazed when I
show them what GRASS can do.

There are bugs and some annoying things that could  be better. But I've
extensively used products from ESRI and MapInfo and have run into at least
as many (if not more) bugs, undocumented features/procedures, and annoying
incomprehensible behaviors in these commercial, and EXPENSIVE products as I
have in GRASS. At least on my Mac, GRASS is much more stable (i.e., no
freezes or crashes) than especially ESRI products under Windows. Just my 2
cents worth.

Michael


On 12/5/04 6:51 AM, "Markus Neteler" <neteler at itc.it> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> due to the recent massive complaints about speed and scalability
> of the GRASS 5.7-CVS data conversion modules (maybe other modules
> as well) and about missing/incomplete documentation I would like
> to post here a few considerations:
> 
> In 5.7 the vector engine was, based on the existing code, more or less
> rewritten, almost by Radim. As spatial index, 3D faces and 3D kernel,
> category index, multilayer, flexible database management system (SQL
> based, with support of external databases and the new internal format)
> were integrated, all algorithms of the vector library depending
> modules had subsequently to be rewritten as well. Then, of course the
> documentation as well (from scratch) as everything changed.
> Along with a new Makefile system, new modules such as v.digit and d.m,
> GUI windows generation at run-time, semiautomated HTML/MAN user
> documentation, merge of the entire programmer's manual in doxygen
> format into the source code, vector network analysis applications etc
> etc a lot of development has happened since 2002.
> In my opinion there is not so much to complain about.
> 
> Looking at the 5.7-CVS ChangeLog statistics, we see that 68%
> of all contributions were submitted by only two developers (not
> considering the recent 2500 code merge commits of Bernhard).
> 
> The current state of 5.7 probably reflects what's possible for such a
> small number of developers, who, btw, are not supposed to work full
> time for GRASS development. It's not that I intend to complain about
> missing contributions from others. Valuable submissions have been
> integrated the last two years. And GRASS could even survive with a
> single developer and the related Web-infrastructure. But naturally
> things happen much slower with a small number of contributors.
> This was probably not very clear yet to everybody.
> 
> Personally, I'm also grateful to all the 5.7 users and power users who
> continuously update (certainly annoying/risky from time to time) and
> test the current developments. This is a valuable contribution as our
> testing here at ITC-IRST (yes, we are using 5.7 in productional mode)
> is certainly not sufficient to catch all possible combinations of
> flags/parameters/projections/data types etc.
> 
> The strategy of the mentioned two developers who contributed most to
> 5.7 is to stabilize the existing code. However, to stabilize does not
> necessarily mean to optimize for speed. Unless more people contribute
> here, this will be postponed for 6.x with 6.x>6.0.
> 
> Main reason is that we simply have to get out a new stable version.
> Otherwise nobody will start to package it and add it to Linux
> distributions etc (see especially the discussions in Debian-GIS
> mailing list). No packager is willing to invest time into a "moving
> target" such as the CVS snapshots are. And very few "normal" users who
> want a stable version for production consider to run GRASS CVS
> (see the repeated questions on 5.0.3 which is still considered as the
> only existing stable version in parts of the community).
> 
> As discussed several times in the last years, I still propose to
> follow the "release often" paradigm rather than "let's postpone again"
> (e.g. for a certain feature which then often doesn't happen to be
> implemented).  For example, the bugtracker is partially ignored by a
> number of developers which suggests (to me) that we should not hold
> 6.0 as many of these old 5.0.x problems were already solved in the new
> version. But: 6.0 must become accessible to the "normal" user.
> 
> And the group of 5.7 users who recently complained about various
> problems are all power users/developers who are able to work from CVS.
> Once 6.0 is out, we can (immediately, depends on contributions) go for
> speed optimization etc. But for now, let's use our energy to clean up
> existing stuff and add missing docs (also more translators are
> urgently needed!); at least the above mentioned two developers think
> so.
> 
> Looking at external projects such as QGIS and JAVAGRASS, we can say
> that the new GRASS seems to be of major interest. But also the
> developers of these projects will need a release to build on top of
> that.
> 
> Again: IMHO there is not much to complain about. The upcoming version
> comes with excellent features. The wider GRASS community is waiting
> for it. Of course, don't hesitate to post improvements. They are more
> than appreciated.
> 
> So far my remarks,
> 
> Markus
> 

____________________
C. Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
PO Box 872402
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ  85287-2402
USA

Phone: 480-965-6262
Fax: 480-965-7671
www: <www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton>