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<TITLE>Start planning for GRASS 6.2?</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN DEFANGED_STYLE='font-size:12.0px'>It seems like GRASS 6.1 is pretty stable, although the flood of new and improved features continues. I haven’t seen any major problems in quite awhile. And there are LOTS of improvements in 6.1 over 6.0. Should we begin thinking about creating a 6.2 GRASS by the end of the year and moving new development to a 6.3?<BR>
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There are a couple features I want to ask about that would round out a 6.2 release very nicely. One is the inclusion of the GRASS Extension Manager (GEM) nearing completion by Benjamin Ducke. This would make GRASS more easily extensible if included in the source distribution. <BR>
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The other is a better attribute database management system (some kind of a spreadsheet like form for data tables, with some basic editing, selecting, and maybe even querying). There was some discussion a short while back about adapting an existing set of tools for this, tied to implementing SQLite (I can’t remember who at the moment). More recently, the possibility has been raised about making SQLite the default attribute data management system—although having briefly looked at the new system used by Open Office 2, I wonder if we might want to think about heading in that direction (or does the Java platform make it difficult?). Is this a possibility in the near future?<BR>
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So, is it time to plan for a new release?<BR>
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Michael<BR>
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Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology<BR>
School of Human Evolution and Social Change<BR>
Arizona State University<BR>
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402<BR>
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phone: 480-965-6213<BR>
fax: 480-965-7671<BR>
www: <a href="http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton">http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton</a> <BR>
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