pcplantdb

["John Schinnerer" <john@eco-living.net>]

Aloha,

>  >    Plant     | Collection      | Relationship Type
>  >    White Oak | White Oak Guild | Guild member
>
> This is just being fussy, but I think having two plants and a
> relationship would make a more useful table.

I agree - and I don't think it's just being fussy.  I would want to look for
all known relationships of (for example) White Oak with various other plants.

The query would be something like 'find all relationships for White Oak'.
Returned would be links to plants that have an entry in the DB indicating some
observed relationship with white oak.

Some returned might be guild-like relationships, but not necessarily, because
I wouldn't want to be limited to only guild-like relationships (whatever that
means).

If I wanted only guild-like relationships, the query would add a parameter -
'find all guild-like relationships for White Oak'.

> The complex part is the
> knowing and describing the relationship.  For example, what
> relationship does a hawthorn have with an oak?
...
> How do you know what they are and how do you represent them in a
> database?  This is where I think the designing with guilds becomes too
> complex to be easily assisted with computers.

Absolutely.  Looks like advanced AI, neural networks, very complex system
modeling, on which millions have been spent without much success...at least
partly because we don't begin to understand what we're trying to model well
enough to model it.

Not only difficult to model (especially with RDB instead of object DB ;-), but
very risky culturally. People may (and do - look at weather forecasting, or
crop yeild forecasting, for example) take the limited, incomplete and
imperfect model to be more 'valid' than their own and others' personal and
local observation and knowledge and research.

My fave definition of 'appropriate technology' is 'technology we can
appropriate for ourselves' - I'd like to create a PC plant DB with that in
mind...keep it simple and useful to as many as possible.

cheers,
John S.


John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
------------------------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Design & Technology Services
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john@eco-living.net
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