An interesting comment that came through my mailbox I thought I'd share
with you:
A 'meta-comment' from the 'ivory tower':
It seems to me that a GIS (or any other software) "should"
estimate the space and time requirements for any major task,
should "know" the limitations of the hardware it is running on,
and tell the user things like:
INSUFFICIENT LIST SPACE FOR REQUESTED BUFFER OPERATION.
after 2 seconds, rather than 11 hours! If the estimate indicates
that the job can be done, if the time is more than a few seconds,
it should say something like:
CALCULATING THE REQUESTED BUFFER WILL TAKE ABOUT 12 HOURS.
COMPUTE NOW? [yn]
And if the user enters "n", type:
DO YOU WANT TO RUN THE BUFFER JOB AFTER 6PM? [yn]
Etc.
(Easy to say, but perhaps difficult to program the resource estimates ...)
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David Mark
geodmm@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu [Internet]
geodmm@ubvms [BITNET]