pcplantdb

[Chad Knepp <pyg@galatea.org>]

Scott Pittman writes:
 > <snip>
 >
 > I got into the pcplantdb late so I'm not sure what was discussed before 
 > I arrived, so forgive my ignorance.  It seems that this db is far more 
 > extensive than what I thought the grant proposal outlined.  I thought we 
 > were talking about a plant guild  data base, and now it seems we are 
 > talking about permaculture "soup to nuts", which is huge.  I don't have 
 > anything against going for the whole thing but does it make sense to do 
 > it in bite size chunks, ie first plant guilds, then water , then 
 > patterns, then ....  I could be wrong but to start off with the whole 
 > magilla  seems a little overwhelming, but I'm not a programmer, so you 
 > tell me.

That's a pretty accurate perception.

I've been playing around with the idea of creating a really useful
permaculture tool for over 2.5 years now.  I first articulated my
vision on the permaculture list in March 2003
<https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture/2003-March/017384.html>.
Since then I've created another iteration of the concept at
<http://galatea.org/eden/> complete with a project description, goals,
and misc. propaganda.  Lawrence has pretty similar long term goals.

The permaculture.info project is very closely aligned with my larger
vision and I've abandoned developing Eden in order to develop for
permaculture.info which I think has a greater chance of fulfilling
more of my original goals than what I could have done on my own.

For me, a large part of the background issues in the platform
discussion is trying to choose a platform that will best meet the
longer term vision.  For the short term goals of the grant itself
platform is not really that important, but like building a house
foundation issues play an important role in the long term quality of
the house itself.

I myself am guilty of some pretty long winded discussions about things
we have already decided will not be a part of the initial
development, such as the whole 'moderation' conversation.  Anyway,
it's fun to talk about.

-- 
Chad Knepp
python -c 'import base64;print base64.decodestring("cHlnQGdhbGF0ZWEub3Jn")'