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  • From: lflondon@mindspring.com
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] (fwd) Re: permaculture software
  • Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 11:28:10 -0500

On Tue, 22 Jan 2002 11:11:53 +0000, in alt.permaculture Ute Bohnsack
<sustag@eircom.net> wrote:

Dear Craig,
fair dues to you!
What I would be looking for is something that would allow for

1) compiling a site management plan from scratch (in short: doing a
baseline
survey of the existing site, setting objectives for future
development,
outlining how those objectives are to be achieved, and monitoring the
achievement of set objectives, yields etc., if desired) much like a
conservation
management plan.

See http://www.cmsp.co.uk/cmsmain/main_frame.htm for the best example
of that
type of software I know of; in fact I started toying around with that
software
for a pc plan when I got my hands on a copy for teaching purposes. But
it's very
expensive and a bit 'overkill' for pc because of a massive reporting
function
including finacial reporting and staff management. I took existing pc
design
checklists, adapted them somewhat and fed the plan format into the
programme.
Now I could fill in each section as I go along, gather information,
observations, note down ideas, make plans, lists of plants to source,
keep lists
of what I have planted, note successes and failures etc. all in the
one place.
Or I could use the plan format to come up with a design for someone
else's
place.

2) something that would facilitate the design process by allowing
random
combinations of elements and functions in a sort of facilitated
brain-storming
way. Many years ago there was an article in the PC Activist where
someone had
taken five cardboard disks of declining diameter, pinned together in
the center
so that they can rotate. On the first, third and fifth disk (s)he
listed all the
elements (s)he could think with all three
disks showing the full set of elements. The second and fourth disk
showed
connecting operators such as AND, OR, WITH, ABOVE, BELOW, CONNECTED
TO, CLOSE
TO, AWAY FROM etc. By rotating the various disks one could come up
with endless
combinations, write down the good ones, discard the ones that didn't
make sense.
Most useful as a prompter. Now, if that sort of thing could be
translated into a
software programme it could be most useful IMHO.

3) An integrated little notepad for sketching out ideas, preliminary
planting
lists or to do lists would also be useful, but then there is existing
software
for that. Same is true for graphic's programmes, map scanning etc. The
abovementioned CMS has an OCE feature for the integration of
photogrpahs, maps
etc into the management plan or reports but that may be overkill, too.

Anyway, that's my little brainstorm on the topic. Hope it's of use.
Please don't
drop the idea. And tell us more about your own ideas.
Thanks Craig.

Ute


Craig Ambrose wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm an errant programmer and permaculture nut, and I've been dabling for a
> little while with designs and ideas for some permaculture design software.
> I'm now about to either start seriously working on the project full time,
> or drop the whole idea, depending on whether it seems that people would
> really be interested in such a program. I figure that to pay for several
> thousand hours of programming and design time, I'd need to sell around a
> thousand copies of the software at consumer prices (around $80 Australian
> per copy). I'm not trying to get rich, return dividends to any investors,
> or any such thing, I simply attempting to earn an ethical livellyhood.
>
> I'm interested in any thoughts that anyone here has about the idea. Would
> people find the software usefull? Are there any features which people would
> especially like to see? Are people interested in hearing more about my
> ideals in detail?
>
> Emails welcome, as well as replies to this thread.
>
> thanks,
>
> Craig



L.F.London ICQ#27930345 lflondon@mindspring.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech london@ibiblio.org




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