pcplantdb

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

Aloha,

> There are design decisions needed about where the display
> method fits. We can have
>     display(plant)
> or    plant.display()
>
> In the former the display method and data are separate
> the plant object does not know how to create the web page about it.
> This makes it easier to use a variety of different
> ways to display a plant. We might want to create a
> PlantDisplayer class and sub classes of this handle the display,
> viz htmlPlantDisplayer, xmlPlantDisplayer, touchgraphPlantDisplayer.

I have been assuming that the front end will handle these decisions.
The back end would have an API that's all about taking in queries and 
returning the requested information in client-independent form.

The clients would decide what/where/how to re-present that info to the 
user who made the request.

The DB and related back-end code - regardless of what it is - would 
communicate directly with each other in whatever way was most efficient. 
 Probably not XML!

XML would be for passing the info to and from the client apps and the 
DB/backend.

> Well the notion of a plant species is an abstraction.

Yep.  Possibly useful, possibly pathological.
As with all else, it's how we use 'em and/or value 'em that has 
consequences.

> It represents a whole set of individual plants
> which are all different in subtile ways. Their simalarities
> make the plant species a (mostly) useful abstraction.

IMO important to note that the most commonly applied set(s) of plant 
"similarities" are only one of an infinite number of sets of observable 
similarities.

For example  cruciferous plants are considred "similar" based on their 
X-shaped parts.  That's one arbitrarily chosen similarity that has 
become "the" similarity that matters.

Cabbages and onions are not considered "similar" under that system - but 
under a system that looked at e.g. sulfur content as a point of 
similarity they would be.


> I'm sure that there is some quote out there saying
> computer science is the science of constructing
> useful abstractions.

There is now! ;-)

--

John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
------------------------------------------
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