[GRASSLIST:9038] Re: ArcView vs GRASS

Michael Barton michael.barton at asu.edu
Sun Nov 13 14:22:17 EST 2005


I couldn't agree more.

Michael
__________________________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402

phone: 480-965-6213
fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton



> From: Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com>
> Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 08:21:31 -0800 (PST)
> To: <grasslist at baylor.edu>
> Subject: [GRASSLIST:9029] Re: ArcView vs GRASS
> 
> On Fri, 11 Nov 2005, Michael Barton wrote:
> 
>> For making nice maps fairly easily--especially in a business
>> environment--ArcView is a good choice. For an academic/research environment
>> I think GRASS is a better choice.
> 
>    I over-simplified my brief answer. GRASS is -- or could be -- a valuable
> business tool once it was developed with a modern UI. I'm not starting a
> flame war here, and I will not respond to more posts defending why it's still
> the way it was 20+ years ago. I went through that years ago and no longer
> really care.
> 
>    My point is that there are many business applications, separate from
> academia and research, where GRASS' analytic abilities are needed. But, in
> this environment it needs a UI that's better designed. A good analogy is that
> of LaTeX and LyX.
> 
>    I spent about a year trying to wrap my head around writing in LaTeX using
> emacs. I spent more time looking up the proper tags and syntax than focusing
> on the content. Then, despite my inherent dislike of GUIs, I discovered LyX
> -- the GUI front end to LaTeX. I worked through the tutorial in about a
> half-hour and immediately re-wrote an article in LaTeX. A colleague of mine
> (who still writes in raw TeX) told me he spent two weeks writing a resume for
> his daughter who was graduating from high school. He sent me a pdf of that
> and asked how it could be done in LyX; all this the first day I used the
> application. By the afternoon of the next day I sent him the LyX/LaTeX code
> that produced the same output he spent two weeks creating in TeX. I was a
> complete novice and he was suitably impressed. Since then I've become much
> more familiar with LaTeX and incorporate it heavily in my reports, articles,
> and book all written using LyX.
> 
>    GRASS should be the same way. A user should have the power of the command
> line available, but have an easy-to-learn GUI front end. Then it will be as
> suitable to the business/commercial market as it is to governments,
> academicians, and reseachers who are not under time pressure to produce
> results. Because GRASS is available under the GPL, any of us are able to
> create the tool we need.
> 
> Rich
> 
> -- 
> Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.               |   Author of "Quantifying
> Environmental
> Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM)   |  Impact Assessments Using Fuzzy
> Logic"
> <http://www.appl-ecosys.com>     Voice: 503-667-4517         Fax: 503-667-8863




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