pcplantdb

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

Aloha,

> This is partially because the controlled vocabulary doesn't know what
> you mean by 'legume'.  Do you mean all members of the family
> Leguminosae, a nitrogen fixing deciduous tree/shrub, both, or
> different things than that.  Currently this means that you have to add
> something to the Culture dictionary (Eden/server/Vocabulary.py) like:
>     
>     'legume': "nitrogen_fixer = \"Y\"",
>
> It already recognizes the following as well:
>
>     'nitrogen': "nitrogen_fixer = \"Y\"",
>     'fixes': "nitrogen_fixer = \"Y\"",
>     'fixer': "nitrogen_fixer = \"Y\"",
>
> Hmmm, looks like we are working on this again;-)  Seriously this is
> the sort of thing that we should be discussing technically and
> something I would like to be issued on.  Long term I think tagging
> will replace controlled vocabulary so there will be a mechanism to
> allow users to 'teach' the engine new words.

Adding stuff to the vocabulary is not looking very user friendly...at 
least not for users like I was playing in the above test case...they're 
not going to be editing a python file unless it's throught some simple 
web-enabled form...

The tagging to "teach" new words sounds intriguing...if it can be made 
end-user-friendly.
And IMO PIW if it's to be a useful permaculture plant research tool 
needs to have at least a few ideas from the start what is likely wanted 
when someone puts a  word as frequently used in PC-land as "legume" in 
the search string.

> The advanced search <http://dev.permaculture.info/advanced.html>.  The
> simple search is really not for serious use unless we put a lot of
> effort into developing the vocabulary.  It's great for looking up
> 'eleagnus' and having it give you what you meant but it's too young
> for serious use.  The advanced search gives you direct access to the
> entire (almost) dataset.  Hmmm... just found a major bug: suitable
> locations doesn't seem to work from the advanced form.

I find this a bit ironic as some (not me) were very excited about having 
that one single simple search box do it all a la google and didn't want 
to be bothered with an advanced search...
It's also ironic that I was one pushing for an advanced search and now 
I'm busy beating up on the simple search... :-)

> Here's how I surf for plants: 

What we need to know is how lots of different people are going to search 
for plants, and then work from that to find some commonalities in search 
implementation.
Another point in favor of letting some "PC public" bang on it I suppose 
- though it would help to have some sort of template for them to present 
their use cases.

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