Question about creating a port for saga gis

[Rainer Hurling]

On 15.11.2009 15:26 (UTC+1), B. Estrade wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 10:10:39AM +0100, Rainer Hurling wrote:
>> On 15.11.2009 09:35 (UTC+1), Scott Bennett wrote:
>>>     On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:41:58 +0100 Rainer Hurling <rhurlin at gwdg.de>
>>> wrote:
>>>> I am working on a new port math/saga. It is my first port.
>>>>
>>>> Now that I am able to directly download the sources of SAGA GIS from 
>>>> sourceforge (thanks to Eygene Ryabinkin and Sergey V. Dyatko), there is 
>>>> another problem with porting where I need some help.
>>>>
>>>> The original configure script of SAGA GIS expects 'wx-config', but in 
>>>> newer FreeBSD systems there only is e.g. wxgtk2-2.8-config.
>>>>
>>>> The porters handbook shows how to configure the ports Makefile to let 
>>>> the port know what wxWidget version to use. I patched the original 
>>>> configure script but obviously that's not enough. The attached files are 
>>>> saved under math/saga and show what I have tried.
>>>>
>>>     Why are you putting saga into math?  It should be in databases, like
>>> grass and postgis are, or conceivably in science.  I don't see any reason
>>> for it to be in math.
>> For me SAGA is clearly a mathematical application. In the porters 
>> handbook you can read at chapter 5.3.2 for 'science' category:
>>
>> "Scientific ports that do not fit into other categories such as astro, 
>> biology and math."
>>
>> So I chose 'math'.
> 
> If I may "bikeshed", it's probably more appropriately in 'science'
> given that there is no 'geo' category similar to 'astro' or 'biology':
> 
>   http://www.saga-gis.org/saga_modules_doc/index.html
> 
> It seems to be much more than a mere plotting tool, and is certainly
> not a math library or "laboratory" (e.g., Octave).

SAGA GIS is for example often used from within R (www.r-project.org) for 
complex spatial analyses. Many scientists use it like other 'math tools'.

> Take a look at the types of applications in 'math' vs 'science', and it
> should be clear that it is general enough to belong in
> 'science'.

For clarification: I do not stand on the category math. It was my 
personal choice from an ecological scientists point of view. If most 
people like to see the port in category science, that's ok for me :-)

> Just my $0.02...
> 
> Brett

Rainer