[GRASSLIST:6665] Re: Advice for a GRASS newbie

[Paul A. Levine]

Dear List,

Thank you all for your helpful replies (including a few off list)

It is clear that the person who recommended the book to me was correct, 
and I will continue using it in my GRASS-learning endeavor.

I think I might have got a bit thrown off because the book starts off 
dealing a bit with some sites functions, which I understand are now 
part of the vector functionality, so it got me kind of discouraged 
early on.

However, it seems like it will be worth it to plough ahead with the 
book and deal with grass 5->6 changes as they come; having this list as 
a resource will definitely help with that.

And to Markus Neteler, thank you for responding personally, I 
appreciate your efforts to make a table of changes, and will gladly 
help by contributing any of my comments to you as I continue working 
thorough the book.

It sounds like this is an exciting time to be getting into GRASS, with 
the major upgrade to vector capabilities.  I can already tell this list 
will be a valuable resource that will complement the book and online 
documentation.

Thanks!
Paul

On Apr 28, 2005, at 12:12 AM, Markus Neteler wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 27, 2005 at 04:17:42PM -0700, Paul A. Levine wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> Apologies in advance if this list is not the right place for these 
>> kind
>> of questions, but I wanted to get the opinion of real-world GRASS
>> users, so I figure there is no better place than here.
>>
>> I am a new GRASS user who is attempting to learn the program so I can
>> use it for my master's thesis in hydrology. I purchased the second
>> edition of "Open Source GIS: A GRASS GIS Approach " by M. Neteler and
>> H. Mitasova, which was recommended to me as THE definitive
>> GRASS-learning guide.
>>
>> Unfortunately, the book was written for GRASS 5.3, and very early on 
>> in
>> one of the tutorials, I came across a command that has become obsolete
>> in GRASS 6 (the d.sites command, directed on page 30 of the book, 
>> which
>> I now understand has been replaced by new functionality of d.vect).
>
> Yes, some commands have become obsolete, but not the entire book :-)
>
>> OK, so that's a good learning experience about how software changes.  
>> Then,
>> a few pages later, I came across another obsolete command that was a
>> little harder to get updated info on.  At this point, having to figure
>> out what commands are obsolete is slowing down my progress through the
>> book.  Furthermore, it seems like all of the GRASS 6 tutorials that 
>> are
>> out there assume some familiarity with GRASS in general that I am
>> lacking.
>
> You are lokoing for this page:
>
>  http://grass.itc.it/grass60/index.php
>  -> See also the 'Old GRASS modules porting status to 6.0'
>     -> 
> http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/twiki/bin/view/GRASS/ModulePortingList
>
> I am currently preparing a table mentioning the relevant changes
> needed to use the book for GRASS 6. Work in progress...
>
>> So, my question is this: Which of the following strategies would the
>> users on this list recommend?
>>
>> a) installing GRASS 5.3, going through the Neteler and Mitasova book,
>> coming out of it knowing GRASS 5.3, then making the switch to GRASS 
>> 6.0
>> when I have some chops with 5.3
>>
>> b) continuing what I am doing right now, which is going through the
>> book and learning the changes as I go (and assuming that any time 
>> GRASS
>> says "command not found" that it's another example of something that
>> changed in the 6.0 update)
>
> If you like, we can offlist communicate for finish the upcoming
> table (your comments are most welcome). Then, in a couple of
> days I will publish the table here:
>
>  http://mpa.itc.it/grasstutor/index.phtml
>
>> c) finding an altogether different resource for learning GRASS 6.0 and
>> ditch the book (this is the least desirable option, especially because
>> the book was not cheap, so I would like to get some use out of it)
>
> We'll help you!
>
> Best regards
>
>  Markus
>
> -- 
> Markus Neteler     <neteler itc it>       http://mpa.itc.it
> ITC-irst -  Centro per la Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica
> MPBA - Predictive Models for Biol. & Environ. Data Analysis
> Via Sommarive, 18        -       38050 Povo (Trento), Italy
>