pcplantdb

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

Howdy,

First off, tonight's messages will probably be my last conact with
cyberspace for the next 8-9 days.

Second off, I walked through a couple botanical gardens here in Jakobstad
today, which reminded me to ask:

Have we/are we implementing common names in such a way that we can handle
languages other than English?
If we mean to be worldwide useful, we need to.  Plants whose common names
I knew in English had of course quite different common names in Swedish,
not to mention Finnish!

Which leads me to this comment:

> One of the ways I see PIW moving is to more of an onion type data
> model.  While the permaculturalist may spend a lot of time on one
> layer of the dataset specifically the Genus species level.

Say Whaaaaaat?
I certainly won't, nor do I understand the origins of this assumption at all.
Walking through those botanical gardens, the latin gibberish didn't tell
me anything useful.  What did was either the common names or the groupings
of plants in the one garden, which grouped them by functions, such as
medicinal, fiber-producing, fodder, human food, etc. etc..

> The market
> gardener/farmer may spend most of their time on the cultivar level of
> particular plants.  Individuals involved with large scale land
> management may look at layers of information on the guild/plant
> community level.

I think someone working from a PC design basis will be using many levels,
whether they're a 'permaculturist' or any other 'profession' or
non-profession that has realized the benefits of PC design as a basis for
whatever they do.

The 'onion' concept is fine, actually.  My concern is with our assumptions
about who will use what layers and how those assumptions may implicitly
limit the usefulness of our system.

cheers,
John S.

John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
------------------------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Whole Systems Design Services
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net