pcplantdb

[Stephanie Gerson <sgerson@stanfordalumni.org>]

hi folks,

Is this something you could raise in less technical terms on the PIW list?  I
think it would be a valuable discussion - not necessarily to reach a consensus
but just to hear what folks have to say...

peace
*Stephanie



------ Original Message ------
Received: 01:39 PM PST, 01/24/2005
From: Chad Knepp <pyg@galatea.org>
To: Permaculture Plant Database <pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [pcplantdb] DTD 0.001

Ok, couple/many things... long overdue.

The nomenclature aspects are mostly what I had in mind.  Also I think
we need a lot of markup for the various atomic data elements like
height, hardiness, etc, which you touch on with physical and growing
conditions.

A lot of the rest of the existing data (the text blobs) I would like
to move to a more universal context such as that of a comment.  These
include cultural notes, propagation notes, know hazards, edible uses,
medicinal uses, and other uses.  These could be as individual comments
or grouped together as a single comment by Ken Fern.  This is a point
that needs additional discussion.

I also want to check in about the time frame of moving to a fully
XML'ized version.  This represents a significant amount of work that
does benefit the development of additional clients but not much else.
Currently there is not really much movement to develop additional
clients so I think full XML'ization could be postponed as a future
funded becomes available.  

As the end product I would like to provide methods that completely
XMLize the data, but also provide shortcut methods (for optimization
reasons) that handle formated content.  More specifically what I'm
referring to is DescribePlant method in Kfml.py (lines 106-245) which
takes over 30 data items and makes a paragraph instead of wrapping XML
around 30 items handing it to the client and let the client unwrap the
XML and turn it into a paragraph.  In the short term the shortcut
methods would be the first available.  As custom clients need/demand
real XML the detailed methods can be filled in.

Richard Morris writes:
 > Folks,
 >      I'll have a bash at a DTD for plants. Acutally rather than a DTD
 > isa a sample XML file which should validate. Hopefully a bit easier to 
 > understand.
 > 
 > <plant> // This could be too specific, do we need
 >      // to represent other things which are not just plants
 > 
 >   <nomeculture> // I.E. things about a plant name
 > 
 >      <AcceptedBotanicalName> // I.E. The name we use in the DB
 >         <BotanicalName>      // A general element covering accepted        
 >   
 >                              // names and synonyms
 >              <genus>Salix</genus>
 >              <species>negra</species>
 >              <author>L.</author>
 > 
 >              // several other elements eg.
 >              <cultivar>Cardinal</cultivar>
 >              <subspecies>...<subspecies>
 >              
 >              // need a way to represent Elaeagnus X ebbingei
 >              // colud follow UDSA fields here
 >              <references>
 >                      // references to specific nameing issues
 >                      // for exanple datasets which use this name
 >                      // more details on references later
 >              </references>
 >        </BotanicalName>
 >      <AcceptedBotanicalName>
 >      
 >      // might want a <Synonyms> tag as a collection of <Synonym>     
 >      // elements
 >      <Synonym>
 >         <BotanicalName>      // A general element covering accepted        
 >   
 >                              // names and synonyms
 >              <genus>Salix</genus>
 >              <species>falcata</species>
 >              <author>Pursh.</author>
 >        </BotanicalName>
 >      </Synonym>
 >      <Synonym>
 >              <genus>Salix</genus>
 >              <species>nigra</species>
 >              <variety>brevijulis</variety>
 >      </Synonym>
 > 
 >      <CommonName lang="EN">Black Willow</CommonName>
 >              // Specify              
 >              // language as an atribute
 >              // may also want to include where the
 >              // name is used. US and UK often have different names
 >              // for same plant
 > 
 >   </nomeculture>
 > 
 > // classification issues
 >   <Systematics>
 >      <Rank>Species</Rank> // What level in family tree this is
 >      <ParentName rank="family">Salicaceae
 >              <ClasificationScheme>Conquist</ClasificationScheme>
 >      </ParentName>
 >      // by using a ParentName rather than a family tag
 >      // it might make it easer to represent objects which are
 >      // higher up the tree.
 > 
 >      // For a cultivar we might have
 >      <Rank>Cultivar</Rank>
 >      <ParentName rank="Species">Salix negra</ParentName>
 > </Systematics>

I don't really understand this.  What exactly is systematics and does
it currently exist in the dataset?

 > <warnings>
 >      <HealthWarning>Eating this tree whole is for your 
 > health</HelthWarning>
 >      <Invasive>Listed as noxious/invasive for:

I personally don't believe in concepts like 'invasive' and have some
resistance to perpetuating that mindset.

 >              // How we represent places in world is a big
 >              // issue, we touched on it back in the archive
 >              <location>

I think we should have a <locale> tag instead of location and a clear
definition of what a locale is.

 >                      <country>Australia</country>
 >                      <State>New South Wales</State>
 >              </location>
 >              <reference><xlink 
 > href="http://www.weeds.org.au/noxious.htm";>Weeds 
 > Australia</xlink></reference>
 >      </invasive>
 > </warnings>
 > 
 > <Physical>
 >      <Habit>Tree</Habit>
 >      <height unit="m">12</heigth> // need to specify units
 >      ....
 > </Physical>
 > 
 > <GrowingConditions>
 >      <SoilType>...<SoilType>
 >      ....
 > <GrowingConditions>

These are examples of the many small items that we have in the dataset
that may not have immediate methods available... there are probably
close to 40

 > <EdibleUses>
 >      // An example of a free text entry (CDATA) with some inline tags.
 >      <Keyword>Inner bark</Keyword> - raw or cooked. It can be dried, 
 > ground 
 > into a powder and then added to cereal flour for use in making bread 
 > etc. A very bitter flavour, it is a famine food that is only used when 
 > all else fails <reference><book>...</book></reference>
 > Young shoots - raw or cooked. They are not very 
 > palatable<reference><book>...</book></reference>].                   

I like the <reference><book> tag idea, and can think of subtags for
<reference> 

 > </EdibleUses>
 > 
 > </plant>

I still have a lot of questions about comments that I don't even know
how to articulate.  A lot of the issue for me is about how to create
(or not) subject/topics and how to display different comments based on
what criteria.  Things like EdibileUses seems like the topic of a
comment, but is it one comment under a fixed topic, or a subsection of
a general comment about a given plant?  


 > Thats probably enough for now. Plenty to talk about!
 > 
 > ttfn
 > 
 > Rich

-- 
Chad Knepp
python -c 'import base64;print base64.decodestring("cHlnQGdhbGF0ZWEub3Jn")'
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+++++++++++++++
Stephanie Gerson
sgerson@stanfordalumni.org
(c) 415.871.5683


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