Rich, The only problem (not for us per se) is wider acceptance of GRASS GIS based on inherent biases derived from a lack of familiarity with GRASS and blind disregard for it. At worst, GRASS' capabilities are misrepresented. GRASS, QGIS, SAGA GIS, etc. represent threats to ESRI -- they are not above spreading falsehoods... A larger user base enriches open source projects -- R serves as a great example...
Tom On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 1:24 PM, Rich Shepard <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, 27 Sep 2016, Dave Roberts wrote: > > Sadly, it's not just Microsoft users that take the GUI view. A couple of >> years ago GRASS was reviewed in Linux Journal and they didn't even mention >> it was scriptable. I wrote a letter to the editor to point that out and >> they responded that that was minimally interesting. >> > > Dave, > > I think this makes sense in the context in which desktop GIS developed. > It > was developed and marketed as mapping software. It could be used to answer > two main questions: what is where? And, where is what? I'm thinking of > MapInfo in the early 1990s where one could do simple vector overlays but > the > emphasis was on producing pretty maps. This was different from the > PC-ARC/Info I used for a year or so in the late 1980s (I was a beta tester > for them) and certainly from GRASS (which I started using in the > mid-1990s.). > > Think of the rise of desktop publishing in the mid- to late-1980s. > Suddenly, everyone became a graphic designer (in their own minds, at least) > and produced many ugly fliers and documents. This is similar to the > difference between GIS as a computerized map creation tool and as spatial > analysis tool. > > Germane to the various GIS software reviews and rankings allow me to > suggest that we ignore them. Those who matter don't mind that GRASS is > poo-poo'd for using such complexities as the console and scripts, and those > who mind don't matter because they wouldn't use GRASS anyway. > > > Rich > _______________________________________________ > grass-user mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-user >
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