[GRASS-dev] GRASS-TNG

[tlaronde at polynum.com]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 04:47:14PM +0100, Radek Barto? wrote:
> 
> BTW: I have seen KerGIS already but I did't try that because I think that this 
> project is somewhere else.
> 

And where exactly do you think it is?

KerGIS is not aimed to be the "modern GIS", "millenium GIS" and so on.

KerGIS is not: GRASS is poor, and just throw away piece after piece.

KerGIS is: I love GRASS as a software alive, learning from its
strengths and correcting its weaknesses.

The Art of Computer Programming dates back early 1960. It's still a
reference.

Unix dates back 1970. It's more and more the reference.

UML on the other side is a contemporary subject of laughs (see acmqueue,
they have some great papers about "dead by UML fever").

If you want to improve GRASS, you must learn first what GRASS is and how
it was supposed to work as a whole when there was a core _developers_
team. Beauty is homogeneity. Distinct pieces that fit perfectly one with
each other in an unity.

If you want to learn GRASS, you must go back to its core.

That's what KerGIS has done.

I already changed a lot of things. I already reverted some changes I
made because I found that I did not correctly understand how things
work. KerGIS will end being significantly different from GRASS from the
engineering point of view. And despite of that, it will still be GRASS
because it will be one step nearer GRASS' very nature. It will be an
evolution of GRASS.

ESRI presented its products as a 3 stages line, from cheap to expensive:


1) Visualizing and updating SIG informations;

2) Being able to produce maps;

3) Being able to analyze data.

GRASS/KerGIS is the more powerful, since it's naturally stage 3.
Improving tools for 1 and 2 can be done (these tools already exist even
if they are not sexy).

And more than once, people with all the bells and whistles of shiny commercial
GUI were unable to do the work while KerGIS/GRASS was able to do it.

I find it rather---say---disgusting to read that whenever people find
something not obvious with GRASS, they think this is GRASS fault. And
the last thread about throwing away v.digit is typical.

Despite what people may think, I'm less conceited than the majority of
the people I read here. I still think that CERL GRASS is a golden gift.
And when I found a mistake, I do not blame the developers, but I'm just
proud to have the chance to become one of them making KerGIS/GRASS
even better.

But I'm not born tired, that's probably why I do not feel comfortable
in the contemporary "europe". You are probably right then : since I do
not belong to this low epoq, I do not feel compelled to produce the
"software of the XXI century". I prefer to work on an eternal one...

Even if I'm the only one. People are not "impressed" by GRASS? But who
is impressed by them?
-- 
Thierry Laronde (Alceste) <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                 http://www.kergis.com/
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89  250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C