pcplantdb

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

Chad Knepp wrote:


> I think the domain name is something that has far more assurance of
> being permanent.  If Bush is re-elected ( ;-) we could spiral into an
> economic recession,

I hope that does not happen.

 funding could be cut to ibiblio, and they could
> dump us in the street.  Sure this is unlikely but there are really no
> guarantees other than what we collectively manifest.  I am still 100
> percent behind trying to be a part of ibiblio but regardless we can't
> really be certain that it will be the forever home of
> permaculture.info.

Very true. I agree.

> I have a different analogy for Zope.  I think it is kind of like
> XEmacs.  It has a point and click gui that is [sort of] easy to use if
> you need it but underneath it is a super powerful highly customizable
> platform.  Rich's comments about Zope where largely his first
> impression of the point and click gui of Zope called ZMI.  Zope is
> really a very serious piece of software with a highly active
> development community.  Zope 3 will feature a complete rewrite that
> will better performing and easier to develop for.  Zope is to python
> what Linux is to Open Source.

Interesting!

> I don't mean to imply that I am unwilling to go with something other
> than Zope if the group chooses it.  I think the best technical choice
> for the project is Zope for the reasons above.  I started Eden with
> the same goals I have now, just with less information.  If the group
> really wants to go with an RDBMS I still think I'm the best programmer
> for your buck... in Missouri anyway ;-).

Sorry for my terse and seemingly unreasonable comments. In a few words,
the software platform is up to you and Rich and I will go with what you all 
decide,
and be grateful that you all will be doing this work.

> The consensus process is really about communicating all the issues
> involved and although the decision about platform has been fairly
> laborious I think we have most of them on the table.  Lawrence feels
> very strongly about this issue and has effectively stated that he will
> block consensus on this issue if we do not choose ibiblio for our

I wouldn't do that, sorry if I gave that impression. I meant to say before 
that
if the project wasn't done on ibiblio I would just put my energies elsewhere, 
i.e. my own
work on ibiblio. Now I can see that making HG happen is all important. Though 
I would prefer ibiblio,
I will contribute wherever it is located as long it provides features and 
resources that I think it ought to
and that we (the core group, PI, the programmers, an HG non-profit, etc.) 
will continue to control its fate.

> hosting.  I am reluctant to make a technical decision that is not
> based solely on technical merits, but this is not a blocking issue
> for me.  I feel like I've expressed my concerns and that people
> understand them.

Sounds like a winner.

> Furthermore, Lawrence, I don't know if I can say this in a way that is
> easy to hear, but I'm concerned that you feel this strongly about an
> issue and have such a high degree of attachment to a particular
> outcome.  Blocking is pretty heavy trip to lay on the group and I hope
> that this is a unique situation that you happen to feel particularly
> strong about and is atypical for you.  On other decisions we've made

See above. I would not block consensus. My concerns for this project can be 
summed up in these words from a previous post:
"I have seen this happen before where a promising project gets coopted by
a pressure group who subverts its mission to serve their own ends. "
I think you made comments about this sort of thing before.

> you, for the most part, have been very open to difference and willing
> to compromise.  In the future I would appreciate if you could express

.... and will continue to.

> your concerns about the decision and allow some discussion before
> presenting your decision.  You did do this in your 'Aug 11th Re:
> platform revisited'.  This is the kind of info. that is helpful in our
> discussions.

I'll continue to do that.

> Well, I'll let someone else generate a platform proposal.  If 'said
> proposal generator' wants to just use my numbers I would like to
> recommend 3) over 4).  It doesn't really add much time to the
> development and increases portability (could use MySQL or
> PostgreSQL...) as well as enables cleaner OO model.

Why don't you and Rich decide what you want to do; you'll know more to help 
make that decision as soon as I post Fred's reply
here. My suggestion to the group would be to go along with the decision you 
all arrive at.

> Ack! update: So I've gotten parts of Ack! working in Zope, but for
> data entry I much prefer the CLI to a browser interface.  There are
> still things I don't understand and I haven't been able to 'reverse
> engineer' the object layout in Zope's ZODB instance in Data.fs in
> order to have the CLI and the web based interface access the same
> objects in Data.fs.  Since we have stepped up the platform discussions
> I haven't been working on it as much against the possibility that we
> might not choose Zope after all.
>
> Sorry this is taking so long.  We will get going here one of these and
> then stuff is REALLY going to happen!  Hang in there y'all.

Sure will and THANKS!

Cheers,

Lawrence
--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech