pcplantdb

[Richard Morris <webmaster@pfaf.org>]

Hi All,

Sorry for not replying much of late, a lot else on my plate.

Great to hear that bid has reached final round. Have we had
any feedback from the funders?

> Because, wonderful news, we were accepted into the final round of the
> grant process with the Threshold Foundation.  But it seems we are re-
> questioning the proposed project - are people still comitted to
> pursuing this?  And if so, are there any changes we would make to
> the initially proposed project?

I'm generally OK with it. I would tend to

1) Strenthen the importance given to the core component
which I beleive is the plant database.
Thats the info people really want and should be where we focus
most energy.

2) Guilds, I do like the idea and I think it could be
an important tool for helping people think about their
gardens/farms in a more intergrated manner. A little
senario:

Farmer Giles is interested in growing corn on his land.
He looks up corn in the database.
In the listing he finds a reference to the Corn/Squash/Bean
guild.
Never having come across the concept before he clicks
the link and reads up on how others have used the experence.
A light buld above his head lights up, ah that could work
and he goes and tries the system.
It works well and he adds a comment to the listing
about the guild giving his positive experiences.
Having tried one guild and found it works he then gets more
interested in the whole ideas about guilds and
goes onto examine them further, lead him into the
whole concept of permaculture.

Its been very interesting listerning to the debate
about Guilds as a thinking tool vrs Guilds as a recipe
book. It would be nice to see this debate in a wider
forum as I think the theres a need for a lot more
talking about guilds in the wider PC community.
Maybe having a Guild database would encourage such.

3) Touchgraph

I've a few more resivations about this. I feel
text based interfaces a-la Google/Eden are the fastest
way of getting to the data about a plant.
The touchgraph to me feels a bit of a nice optional extra.
I'm still not sure how useful it will be in practice

The plant family tree I did in Touch Graph is fun
and possibly instructive, but its not a very easy a way
to navigate through to the plants.

How else might touch graph be used?

It could possible be used as a thinking tool to say link
the important elements in a design that you are doing.
But being a bear of very little brain I haven't really
got a good idea as to how this might work.

3a) Frontends in general.

I do think there is scope for more interesting frontends.
I've never been particularly happy with the 'advanced
search' on the pfaf website where you can choose
the different soil types etc, it seems a bit
clumsy somehow.

There are lots of other posiblilties.

Snag is html is farily limited in what you can do
for user input (a good bit of graphics could make things
a bit better than standard html forms.
(There is now an xml-forms spec being published
but its a bit too cutting edge for us).

A lot could be done with a dedicated client
something like a Java applet (or possibly flash).
This does make things a bit more complicated
as the user will have to download the client
which takes time. Also a lot more dev time to
write the client end.

Some of the things you could do with a smarter
front end:

Use a tree style interface (like in windows explorer)
to navigate through the the different plant uses.
These quite nicely group into a tree structure
three levels deep say
Other Use -> Building Materials -> Thatching

etc.

---
After all that is said and done, I'll happly work
for the project which ever shape it takes.

> Thank you Chad and John for responding.  I have a few comments for you 
> both, but pertinent to all:
>
> Chad,
> “As for a backend, one of the core design goals I had in mind when I
> wrote Eden was extensibility…I think the permaculture community needs a 
> better than a wiki wiki”

Question: what are the charteristics of a better than wiki
wiki?

I had a bit of a look at at the phpwiki table layout
last night. It would be a afternoons work to convert
the dataset into this wiki. I might have a go (if I ever
get a free afternoons work).

Please note by an afternoon's
work I mean an afternoon's work, not a mornings work
or an evenings work, which are quite different things ;-)

> “Has someone already stepped forward to handle and host source control 
> if/when some design and coding starts in earnest?”

Easiest way would be to get a source forge account,
maximium exposure, well maintained cvs repositories.
I've reciently been using it on another project and
apart from a few teathing problems while we tried to
understand cvs it works a treat.

> I presumed, from what we had discussed previously, that this was 
> Richard’s responsibility.  Richard?  Am I incorrect?  (And that you, 
> John, were going to be the 'user-tester').  Are all of you who are 
> described in the team bios still committed to this project?

Happy to do it if so wished.

> Once again, I ask all of you interested in being involved to please re-
> read the proposal and respond.


> Is it possible to create the backend for the application we have been 
> describing - one that allows users to create guilds/search for suitable 
> plants for a guild by using plant functionality (nitrogen-fixer, etc.) 
> and then display this information in a web-like interface?  And allow 
> users to 'click' on the relationship between two components (two plants, 
> for example) to learn more about the relationship/determine 
> compatibility?  I believe it can be done, but I am also not expert in 
> programming...

Yes it is possible.

Just trying to picture what you have in mind:
is it something like

        A web of plants, maybe with a small box around
the name of each plant and with link from each plant to
other memebers of guilds its a member of.

Question, what would be the extra information in these
relationships?

Leading on from that. How is this extra data collected?
How is it represented in the system?

Having ricer relationships has implications on
backend design, in particular the table design for the
relationship. You could have an extra field with a textual
description of the relationship.

> Because, wonderful news, we were accepted into the final round of the 
> grant process with the Threshold Foundation.  But it seems we are re-
> questioning the proposed project - are people still comitted to pursuing 
> this?  And if so, are there any changes we would make to the initially 
> proposed project?

Cool.

Catch you later dudes

        Rich
--
Plants for a Future: 7000 useful plants
Web:   http://www.pfaf.org/ same as http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/
Post:  1 Lerryn View, Lerryn, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, PL22 0QJ
Tel:     01208 872 963 / 0845 458 4719  
Email: webmaster@pfaf.org
PFAF electronic mailing list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pfaf