[GRASS-dev] GRASS 7: r.shaded.relief changed name?

Thu Apr 23 10:18:31 PDT 2015

On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 12:39 PM, Carlos Grohmann <carlos.grohmann at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> Well, maybe we can think on this again in the near future?..

The issue is that we must keep API compatible in major version following
semantic versioning (http://semver.org/). We can rename items in the menu
(GUI) but not rename module (CLI and API) for 7 series. We can add new
modules but having synonyms for modules might cause confusion. However, the
situation now is a little bit special: 7.0.0 is first in the series and it
was not fully adopted yet, so backwards compatibility within 7 series is
not such an issue. However, we would have to be really sure we are doing
the right thing.

> I always think on my students and in people coming from the ArcGIS
world.. If I were just beginning in GRASS, looking at the modules' names, I
would definitely think that relief shading would be done with r.shade, not
r.relief (which would give me the impression that it something related to a
morphometric parameter - but that may be because I do work with
geomorphometry..).

Perhaps the basic descriptions in manual could be improved to direct you
between r.relief and r|d.shade in case you find one and not the other.

> Anyway, the menus descriptions are good and clear. It's just going to be
a bit hard to get used to the new names after all these years..

Backwards compatibility between series (i.e. 7 with 6) is valuable but
sometimes we must change in order to accommodate new features or have
consistency (in this case, considering other related modules from the
previous discussion).

> best
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 11:25 AM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus at gmail.com>
wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 8:41 AM, Carlos Grohmann <
carlos.grohmann at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > That was an interesting discussion, I'm sorry I missed it (should pay
more attention...)
>> >
>> > I think that modules names should be descriptive. When I started
learning GRASS (and GIS), back in my Masters, I knew what r.shaded.relief
would do. I wouldn't be sure in the case of r.relief or r.shade.
>> > If we have r.local.relief in the addons, it's great but a new user
might not know about this, so the name still can cause confusion.
>> >
>> > Making the names shorter doesn't necessarily make them better, IMO.
>> >
>> > I'd say r.shaded.relief should stay as it was.
>> >
>> > As for r.shade, I'd go with something like r.drape.shade or
r.shade.drape (because that's what it is doing) or r.shade.mapping (but
this could be confusing as well - is it mapping the shades?..)
>>
>> Thanks for the comments, Carlos. I think the desire to have short names
was definitively involved in the decision. Although they might be less
readable they have different advantages. According to it's name I might see
r.shaded.relief as something which shades the relief (r.relief+r.shade) but
it just creates the shade from relief (r.relief). Also, r.relief, although
not self-explanatory, does not invoke any association with relief metrics
or relief-related parameters because I'm not familiar with these terms
(also Google and Wikipedia seems to be quite ignorant about them).
>>
>> In any case, I should emphasize that although this is an important
feedback, the discussion already happened and now it would be impossible or
at least very hard to change it since we have already released 7.0.0.
>>
>> Vaclav
>>
>> > cheers
>> >
>> > Carlos
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 12:06 AM, Helena Mitasova <hmitaso at ncsu.edu>
wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I agree with Carlos on this , I think r.shaded.relief was pretty
clear what it was doing. As I learned recently, r.relief indeed can be
confused with any of the numerous relief metrics.
>> >>
>> >> Helena
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Wednesday, April 22, 2015, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus at gmail.com>
wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> Hi Carlos,
>> >>>
>> >>> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 8:44 AM, Carlos Grohmann <
carlos.grohmann at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Hi
>> >>> >
>> >>> > I just installed the latest pkg for GRASS 7 on OSX (nice splash
screen BTW)
>> >>> > and r.shaded.relief is now just r.relief
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Is it too much if ask why this change? To me, r.shaded.relief is
so much better, it describes the module.
>> >>>
>> >>> I did the rename after discussion with Michael Barton and Markus
Neteler. We've tried to consider different names for several modules and
picked the ones which seemed less confusing. See the discussion:
>> >>>
>> >>> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/2014-November/071904.html
>> >>>
http://osgeo-org.1560.x6.nabble.com/Re-GRASS-SVN-r62845-in-grass-trunk-scripts-d-shadedmap-r-shadedmap-td5174184.html
>> >>>
>> >>> >
>> >>> > r.relief might be confusing (is it to calculate some
rellief-related parameter?
>> >>>
>> >>> I'm afraid that in case of these modules, basically anything can be
confusing. Let us know what do you think after reading the discussion, so
we have some more feedback.
>> >>>
>> >>> > local relief? other morphometric parameter?).
>> >>>
>> >>> BTW, there is r.local.relief in addons.
>> >>>
>> >>> Vaclav
>> >>>
>> >>> >
>> >>> >
>> >>> > best
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Carlos
>> >>> >
>> >>> >
>> >>> >
>> >>> > --
>> >>> > Prof. Carlos Henrique Grohmann
>> >>> > Institute of Energy and Environment - Univ. of São Paulo, Brazil
>> >>> > - Digital Terrain Analysis | GIS | Remote Sensing -
>> >>> >
>> >>> > http://carlosgrohmann.com
>> >>> > http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5073-5572
>> >>> > ________________
>> >>> > Can’t stop the signal.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > _______________________________________________
>> >>> > grass-dev mailing list
>> >>> > grass-dev at lists.osgeo.org
>> >>> > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Helena Mitasova
>> >> Associate Professor
>> >> Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
>> >> North Carolina State University
>> >> 1125 Jordan Hall
>> >> NCSU Box 8208
>> >> Raleigh, NC 27695-8208
>> >> http://www4.ncsu.edu/~hmitaso/
>> >> http://geospatial.ncsu.edu/
>> >>
>> >> email: hmitaso at ncsu.edu
>> >> ph: 919-513-1327 (no voicemail)
>> >> fax 919 515-7802
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Prof. Carlos Henrique Grohmann
>> > Institute of Energy and Environment - Univ. of São Paulo, Brazil
>> > - Digital Terrain Analysis | GIS | Remote Sensing -
>> >
>> > http://carlosgrohmann.com
>> > http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5073-5572
>> > ________________
>> > Can’t stop the signal.
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Prof. Carlos Henrique Grohmann
> Institute of Energy and Environment - Univ. of São Paulo, Brazil
> - Digital Terrain Analysis | GIS | Remote Sensing -
>
> http://carlosgrohmann.com
> http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5073-5572
> ________________
> Can’t stop the signal.
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