[QGIS-Developer] QGIS 4.0 - let's start some early discussions!

[Spencer Gardner]

> This feedback is SO invaluable to the project, thanks for submitting it!
> Nyall
> ** SNARK: for what it's worth, we're not the only ones with crap API
> migration docs. I recently had the extreme misfortune of having to
> port some javascript from the ESRI ArcGIS JS library v3 to v4. Apart
> from a handful of scattered notes, the migration docs are effectively
> one paragraph: "Version 4.x is a substantial overhaul of the ArcGIS
> API for JavaScript and its mapping components. Consider rewriting
> applications instead of simply trying to update them.". In comparison,
> the QGIS 3 api break documentation are pure gold.

I agree this is helpful feedback, and I can vouch that, at least in the
USA, government agencies are often set up to favor the "security" of a
license arrangement with a large corporation over the unknowns presented by
a project like QGIS.

I wanted to offer a different take from the other side of the equation in
the USA. I work for a firm that consults with government agencies, so the
dynamics are a bit different. In my case, we've adopted QGIS pretty
heavily--not exclusively, but nearly so. The big sell to our users had very
little to do with documentation or the cleanliness of the API. The greatest
selling point for us was the huge improvement in usability and features
over ESRI products. In other words, my experience leads me to the exact
opposite conclusion from Calvin: more and better features has proven the
worth of QGIS to our users regardless of documentation issues.

That's not to say documentation doesn't matter. Improvements to
documentation would be a great thing. But the transition from 2.x to 3.x
for us was an easy sell because of the huge improvements in usability and
stability.

I guess the takeaway is that some user groups are more affected by
technical changes like an API break than other user groups.

Lastly, I can vouch for the poor quality of documentation from the
proprietary GIS option(s) out there. Inertia seems to be the biggest
problem QGIS faces at this point.

Thanks all for consistently putting out great software!
Spencer
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