pcplantdb

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

Stephanie Gerson wrote:

> -Guess what, yalls.  You'll never believe it.  Yes.  The rumors are true.  I
> switched to Firefox!  Or shall I say, Bear switched me to Firefox.  Which
> means...I can access the issue tracker!  (Which I'll be doing soon...)
>
> -Wait, there's more.  So I tried switching to Thunderbird.  Or shall I say,
> Bear tried switching me to Thunderbird.  It didn't work for some reason.  Hey
> Bear, considering the technical expertise we gots here - could you please
> explain why it didn't work in case someone can figure it out?

What about just using Mozilla which has browser, email client and news 
client all in one (like Dr. Bronner's soap). I use this as I like the 
browser better. Maybe this will install better.

> -Chad asked an interesting question, "Ok, thinking more about relationships
> and I've come to an interesting sticky place in my thinking. My question is,
> are we talking about an object that has a relationship to one or more objects
> or a set of objects that have a relationship with each other or is it

This is interesting. It suggests there may be a need for a relationships 
rating system (scale of 1 to 10 or something else, a loose or a tight 
relationship) for:

object to one or more objects that either make up a set (high rating) or
  a group (lower rating). Ex. plants that live entirely and only in
  water (this close relationship of lifeforms living in an identical
  environment would have a high rating and would comprise a set)
  Or: acid loving plants: ericaceae, conifers, hollies
  Or: plants requiring symbiotic relationship with mycorhizal fungi
  (oak)
  Or: plants in both the above categories: pine which is acid loving and
  requires the presence of fungi that provide it with iron in the soil

object to a set of objects
   Ex. cattails, which have to be partly out of water but require a
   constantly wet environment, would relate to a set of plants living
   entirely in water because it is an aquatic plant meant for an
   aquaculture system in a permaculture design (this relationship would
   receive a lower rating because of lack of similarity of environment
   required for survival). Maybe this rating system could express only a
   negative value:  on how many points is an object dissimilar to
   another object or objects and/or set of objects. Ex. cattails,
   semiaquatic,  would receive a -1 value when matched in a relationship
   with a set of plants living only and entirely in water because they
   require an aquatic environment for survival.
In an aquaculture environment you have:
- plants that live completely submerged and float free in water but may
  flower out of water
- plants that must float on the water's surface and extend roots that
  float free underwater (azolla, water hyacinth)
- plants that extend foliage and flowers above or on water but have
  roots that require a solid substrate (soil and/or detritus) under
  water (cattails, water lillies)

These three groups would comprise sets with the highest relationship 
rating; each would receive a lower rating when matched with other set(s).

> sometimes one and sometimes the other?"  Could this be different levels of
> zoom?  'Zoom in' on one object, and view all of the relationships it has with
> other objects.  But you could also 'zoom out' and view groups of objects
> (companion plants <--> full guilds) and their relationships with other
> objects/groups of objects.  Does it have to be one or the other?  Mimic Gaia.

Really excellent idea. Could this zoom feature be implemented? It would 
be vitally important to have this feature somewhere along the line.

> -As far as search grammar, can't we just do the same as Google?  As in, have
> AND, OR, and "" capabilities?  I know Johns wants to make this more like a
> focused database search, but I agree that most people have (more) experience
> with internet search engines - and I think Google works just swell.  Default
> AND is fine for advanced (or whatever was decided?).  But would be nice to
> have same capabilities as Google.  We should have a "how to search"/FAQ page
> regardless, and I'm willing to write it if someone (Chad?) explains how the
> search grammer works.

Good plan.