[GRASS-dev] r.modis in GRASS 7 trunk

[Benjamin Ducke]

I would like to express a different point of view.

One of the nice things about GRASS in its current
form is that one download will get you hundreds
of modules without having to worry about installing
add-ons.

What's the difference between having 300 or 500
modules in the base distribution? GRASS has the
file layout required to scale up to this size
easily, and each individual module is small and
lean. Even if we were to triple the number of
modules in the base distribution, the download
size would not increase significantly (and vice
versa).

On the other hand:

- Having to compile add-ons written in C/C++ is a
big obstace, g.extension or not, for many users,
especially on Windows.

- It is hard to ensure consistent quality across
external add-ons.

- Documentation for such add-ons cannot be included
in the main online index.

- There is always a risk that useful add-ons maintained
by external developers will be abandoned.

- Putting modules into extension groups will never
be free of overlap and always leave people wondering
where the wanted module is. The basic r.*, v.* etc.
and some good keywords are a much better system IMHO.

So I am not convinced about the merits of breaking
the GRASS distribution into smaller pieces and add-ons.
Instead, I would say the base distribution should grow
as required and include new, useful modules such as r.modis.

Cheers,

Ben

On 10/30/2012 11:43 AM, Yann Chemin wrote:
> Hi Martin,
>
> I have no worries, since I do load modules directly. I am worried about
> the learning curve for Windows-bound students in need of MODIS images,
> but not comfortable with GRASS GIS yet.
>
> But this is an old story coming back,
>
> I am all for reducing significantly the number of modules in GRASS, to
> have a lean download.
>
> We can indeed have groups of plugins to get through g.extension:
>
> - Hydrologically related
> - Imagery
> - Temporal
> - 3D
> - DB (though I am not a user, so cannot be sure of how much needed)
>
> This would keep import/export, some of the basic raster and vector ones.
> Neat small download, use g.extension for anything else, by group or on
> demand.
>
> Yann
>
> On 30 October 2012 15:08, Martin Landa <landa.martin at gmail.com
> <mailto:landa.martin at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi,
>
>     2012/10/30 Yann Chemin <yann.chemin at gmail.com
>     <mailto:yann.chemin at gmail.com>>:
>      > as a regular user of MODIS, I would like to call other MODIS users to
>      > express interest to include r.modis into GRASS 7 SVN.
>
>     we cannot extend number of modules in trunk forever. Probably some
>     modules should be reviewed and moved to addons.
>
>     Do you have any problem with installing r.modis using g.extension?
>
>     Martin
>
>     --
>     Martin Landa <landa.martin gmail.com <http://gmail.com>> *
>     http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/~landa <http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/%7Elanda>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Yann Chemin
>
>
>
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>



-- 
Benjamin Ducke
{*} Geospatial Consultant
{*} GIS Developer

   benducke at fastmail.fm