Future direction - GRASS GUI

[Jeff P. Hollenbeck]

Hello everyone,

	Has anyone looked at the GUI developed by GPZ technology (called
GRASS-XMI)?  As an end user (and not a programmer), I really like the
model they adopted.  

	As I read this discussion regarding GUI's and GRASS, I have become
concerned about the perceived need to be portable to Microsoft Windows.  
I like GRASS because it runs in all my unix environments very well, and
does not rely on any new, ephemeral, or non-standard libraries or OS
components.  Would this change just to be another member of the Windows
community?

	I have become marginally proficient at reading C code over the
years because not only is GRASS written in C, but almost *every* other
component of my OS is also written in C.  Not to say that other languages
aren't wonderful, just that there must be other end users out there who
are like myself, and don't have the time or capacity to learn more
languages.  Perhaps with gtk, this is a non-issue?  Again, I am not a
programmer.

	In summary, a better GUI sounds great.  I just hope it doesn't
lead to the degradation of all that currently makes GRASS so wonderful --
particularly if all we gain is portability to the MS Windows platform.

Thanks for your attention,

Jeff.

Jeff P. Hollenbeck
Dept. of Forest Resources
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331
hollenbj at ucs.orst.edu