[GRASS5] Re: Developing a New Grass UI

[Michael Barton]

Thanks again David. These are the kinds of issues I'd like to make sure we
discuss BEFORE we set out building the next generation UI.

Michael
__________________________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402

phone: 480-965-6213
fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton



> From: David Finlayson <dfinlays at u.washington.edu>
> Reply-To: <dfinlays at u.washington.edu>
> Date: Sun, 06 Nov 2005 21:45:46 -0800
> To: Michael Barton <michael.barton at asu.edu>
> Subject: Re: Developing a New Grass UI
> 
> On 11/6/05, Michael Barton <michael.barton at asu.edu> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> This way you are issuing a set of commands to the UI, rather than having the
>> UI run a set of independent display commands, a subtle, but significant
>> difference.
> 
> Indeed, it cuts both ways. By creating a display driver that is
> fundamentally object-oriented with a hierarchy of display objects
> (lines, points, rasters, map decorations, view points, etc.) you will
> need to create a mini-language to access these objects from a script.
> Alternatively, you can expose the graphics objects to a scripting
> language like Python (think about how you manipulate Tk with Tcl).
> Rather than working with a high-level command, users will need to
> learn an API to the monitor display. It can be powerful, of course,
> but now simple map automation requires mastering both the API and a
> real programming language.
> 
> I didn't get into it too much in my previous post, but this is exactly
> the problem that ESRI faces with ArcGIS. They have a very powerful
> object-oriented API that serious programmers can access at low level.
> But it requires a lot of boilerplate code to get at even simple
> functions and way too much understanding of the underlying
> architecture. I once replaced a 10 line script in AML (the old command
> line language of ArcInfo) with more than 1000 lines of visual basic to
> do exactly the same thing in ArcGIS. That project drove me to start
> using GRASS. I wanted a GIS without the object oriented design
> patterns.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you understand that I DO think a new GUI is a good
> idea. I am really excited about Q-GIS and hope that it develops into
> something as good as ArcGIS is currently. (personally, I think Q-GIS
> should be the GUI to grass). I just worry that we will throw the baby
> out with the bath water "modernizing" the GRASS UI.
> 
> David