[GRASS-dev] Updated WinGrass release installer now available

[Paul Kelly]

On Thu, 9 Apr 2009, Colin Nielsen wrote:

> Question for those who are testing: do you prefer the msys version
> (with a functioning terminal) or the other one (which runs
> grass64.bat)? Both is probably confusing, but I don't want to remove
> the older grass64.bat option without consultation from those who
> created it on their specific reasons for it.

The reason for it is so GRASS can be started on Windows without having to 
install Msys. Msys is only needed for a few scripts - with GRASS 7 where 
all the scripts have been converted to Python there should be no need for 
Msys at all. Helena's argument about it being helpful to have a mini-Unix 
environment with familiar Unix commands is very valid though. But for 
testing/development purposes I think it's best to leave the Msys commands 
out of the PATH as having them installed can hide Unix-isms in GRASS - 
there was quite a bit of work went into removing these a couple of 
years ago and making GRASS truly native on Windows without the need for 
Msys.
Hope that clarifies things a bit?

Paul