[GRASS-dev] Making start of GRASS GIS easier for newcomers

[Vaclav Petras]

On the topic of descriptions. I left there what I had there the first time
because I had no time to revise it yesterday.

Location = project was there for a long time already but I'm not saying
that it is good. However, there should be some suggestions, how to use
GISDBASE, Location and Mapset. Otherwise, it is the same as saying nothing.
The goal of the descriptions is to teach people and for this you need
examples.

Michael's notes (just so you don't have to dig through the thread):

### GISDBASE

"A GRASS GIS database directory contains one or more Locations”

 (no need to say that you can have more than one GISDBASE)

### Location

"All GIS data in a Location directory are in the same coordinate reference
system (projection). Locations contain Mapsets.”

 OR

 "All GIS data in a Location directory are in the same spatial projection.
Locations contain one or more Mapsets.”

 (Locations are not necessarily related to ‘projects’. Mine are very much
projection based—e.g., I have a single latlon Location for ALL my latlon
data regardless of which research project it is used for. Do we need to say
“coordinate reference system (projection)”? Doesn’t just “projection” cover
it well enough? These are directories, so it might help to say this.)

  ### Mapset

 "A Mapset contains GIS data. Every Location automatically has one Mapset
named PERMANENT that also contains projection information for the Location."

 (A Mapset may or may not relate to one task; that depends on the user.
Some of mine do and some don’t. The ‘common data’ in PERMANENT is not
really important except in a multi-user setup, which is not what most
people use today. Mapsets are directories too, but as someone mentioned,
maybe we shouldn’t stress this in case someone tries to move stuff around
in a mapset. On the other hand, and unlike Arc, entire Locations and entire
Mapsets CAN be moved without any harm).
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