[GRASS translations] What's a project in GRASS?

[Glynn Clements]

dottorando wrote:

> For you and considering the whole concept of 'location' in GRASS, is it 
> closer to 'project' or to 'place'?

Place.

> German people have translated it just as 'Project' or 'Location Project' 
> as Otto said.

"Project" amounts to a change in terminology, not a translation.

While you could argue that a "location" corresponds to a "project", if
we had wanted to use the term "project", we would have done.

> French people have translated as 'Secteur' that is, closer 
> to place. We, spaniards, don't know, although I strongly prefer the concept 
> of project. The "rest of the world"?

It depends upon whether you feel that a translation should simply be a
translation, or whether it's appropriate to change any English terms
which you disagree with, then translate the changed terms.

> While I wrote this message, I was looking for something and I found it. I 
> want to show to everybody (also to myself) how wiki defines the concepts 
> of 'location' an 'mapset' :)
> http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/Gis_Concepts#How_a_GRASS_project_is_organized

Regarding the sentence:

	A location is a GRASS project consisting of an area,
	projection definition (or unprojected), a grouping of mapsets,
	all with the same projection settings. A location is a
	subdirectory of the GRASS database.

I wouldn't have used the term "project" here, but simply written:

	A location consists of an area, projection definition (or
	unprojected), a grouping of mapsets, all with the same
	projection settings. A location is a subdirectory of the GRASS
	database.

A user could just as easily have a separate database directory for
each project. In fact, if a project is likely to consist of data in
multiple projections, it would probably better to have a separate
database directory for the project.

The only significant difference between having two locations in the
same database or in separate databases is that there are a small
number of commands (e.g. r.proj, v.proj, i.rectify) which can access
data from a different location directory within the same database
directory, but commands never access data from outside the current
database directory.

IOW, although any given project usually involves data from a single
location, it can use data from more than one location. In that sense,
it isn't accurate to consider a project as equivalent to a location. 
OTOH, if you rarely use data from outside the current location
directory, it's common to have a single database directory containing
all of your location directories, so it isn't accurate to consider a
project as equivalent to a database directory either.

In summary, GRASS itself has no notion of a project, it's purely a
matter of the user's perception.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>