Finally I've found the time to analyse the questionnaire responses. Here's one that I thought should be posted here:
----- Forwarded message from Christoph Hoegl <C.Hoegl@gmx.net> -----
>
>
> 8) What are your wishes for the future of Grass (which new modules, gui,
> database management, etc) ?
>
The module base is pretty complete but pretty unusable for the novice.
You have to look in the source code to get a glimpse of what specific
modules do, and how they do it (Even some "Grass Core Developers" don't
know of some of the "features" of the code. Part of it seems to be the lack
of documentation of the core source (CERL-time) which was dropped more
or less on the migration to a non-military project), which now hinders
new coders to deploy new methods as all core routines are pretty messed up.A pretty easy plan to make grass more feasible to the beginner would
be to reduce the number of modules to the working core modules
and have people download all modules they might need later on.This would work like this.
Splitting the tree in
Import/Export like r.in.* v.in.* r.out*
Display like d.vect*
db like db.*And make conclusions on wether they do their core functionality and on what
core functions they depend on.Provide a testmodule that checks for the existance of modules and tests
for bugs. That way a complete prerelease-check would be possible.
Provide a list of defunct modules along with a way to circumvent the particular
misbehaviour.
E.g.: vector line types (boundaries, edges, lines) : Status: currently
not yet working correctly. Use separate maps/overlays to get calculation done
and merge only for presentations. This will save you lots of time
and your data becomes more useful.>
>
----- End forwarded message -----