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pcplantdb - Re: [pcplantdb] User experience, assumptions

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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>
  • To: john@eco-living.net, pcplantdb <pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] User experience, assumptions
  • Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2005 22:50:03 -0400

John Schinnerer wrote:

One of the ways I see PIW moving is to more of an onion type data
model. While the permaculturalist may spend a lot of time on one
layer of the dataset specifically the Genus species level.


I certainly won't, nor do I understand the origins of this assumption at all.
Walking through those botanical gardens, the latin gibberish didn't tell
me anything useful. What did was either the common names or the groupings

Many people working in a horticultural field will learn the latin names of plants and their families that they work with, common names later.
Read the American Nurseryman sometime. Nurseries, contractors, planners and architects universally refer to plants they work with by their Latin name. Its a lot easier and you can easily positively identify plant material, varieties and their origins.
What's the common name for contoneaster? cotoneaster. You want to find out about all the cultivars of cotoneaster? They'll all be in Latin.
You can't go easily from common name (cultivar) to family or species.

Uses should be a tag or qualifier that is part of an object record and exists in the object's data.

of plants in the one garden, which grouped them by functions, such as
medicinal, fiber-producing, fodder, human food, etc. etc..


The market
gardener/farmer may spend most of their time on the cultivar level of
particular plants. Individuals involved with large scale land
management may look at layers of information on the guild/plant
community level.

Chad is right about this.

I think someone working from a PC design basis will be using many levels,

They will be working from the specific to the general or rather from families to cultivars (the onion skin) - a dartboard is a good analogy.

whether they're a 'permaculturist' or any other 'profession' or
non-profession that has realized the benefits of PC design as a basis for
whatever they do.

The 'onion' concept is fine, actually. My concern is with our assumptions
about who will use what layers and how those assumptions may implicitly
limit the usefulness of our system.

A landscape architect wiill use the inner layers; the permaculture designer will likely use inner and outer 50/50.






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