pcplantdb

[Chad Knepp <pyg@galatea.org>]

Ok, I think I have a proposal.

One of the big difficult questions for me re: relationships has been
how do we refer to elements that do not exist in the database yet, but
that we hope to have at some point.  My answer: we don't.  How about
at this point we only allow relationships between elements that exist;
in our case, plants.  This will limit the effectiveness, but it is
doable and could support GBI display.

A rough table implementation:

Object   |   Relationship   |   Object   |   Notes
---------------------------------------------------
Plant A      Wind break         Plant B      Withstands extreme oceanic...
Plant B      Trap crop          Plant A      Rabbits love Plant B
Plant C      Inhibits growth    Plant B      Secretes allelopathic hormone


A GBI display for Plant B would show a positive relationship path to
Plant A and a negative path tho Plant C.

I still don't really grok the relationship part of the equation, but I
think if we allow an 'open vocabulary' it might sort itself out.  I'm
also proposing that relationships be unowned and unmoderated (for
now).

Whadyathink?

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