By Louis on
Topic Type
Problem

Hi RJ,

Great job starting the Fido 2.0 documentation! It's awesome that the price is driven down even further and that you don't need to keep a text message plan.

However, I think it would be better to start a new tool for Fido 2.0. It's solving the same problem but I think that the tech/hardware/build/issues are so different that it is confusing to put both tools under the same umbrella.

What do you think?

--Louis

Forums
Greenhouse Monitoring with Text Message Alerts
Forum comment

I think Louis makes a good point. I have been thinking about the same thing with the roller crimper tool and the iFARM tool. The original tool wiki posted has been lost with new approaches that confuses the post more than clarifies the progression and relationships. I think it would be great to have the concept of branching so that each of the new tools could be edited and modified on their own merit, but the evolution and heritage flows through. It is also an important part of providing credit for previous work too. I also think that as some of these tools are used together that the concept of a meta-tools or "kits" becomes important. Some tools are a new organization of other sub-tools or components. For example, a "small scale grain production kit" is a tool that I will be developing. It is a tool that will assemble a number of other tools together in a particular combination of hardware, decision support software and spreadsheets to solve a particular economic and technical problem. Each individual tool will also have a tool wiki, or even additional sub wikis but they also have a relationship together in how the operate. Open shops enables some custom grouping of tools, but I think the ability to segment and custom organize groups of tools to address particular problems would make the content more meaningful. This type of tagging with defined functional relationships would also enable us to group many of the tools that are attempting to solve similar problems, like data logging and automation, prone position weeding/harvesting, roller crimping, climate control etc... I wonder if some visual navigation of tool relationships might be in the future...
Forum comment

@Louis Are you suggesting that the "Fido 2.0" design become a different project under another name or that there should be "Fido 1.0" and "Fido 2.0" Tool entries on FarmHack.net? @Dorn I agree that there's some organizing that needs to be done on those tools. Currently we have the ability to create new Wiki pages and hyperlink to them. We should maybe try using that approach for now to figure out how we might program more tools on FarmHack.net to make that process somehow more useful/easier. I organized the Fido tool a bit more today to try to make it easier for users to find what they are looking for. \\ RJ
Forum comment

I was suggesting that Fido 2.0 become a different tool entry - keeping the namesake, "Fido", is fine by me. I think the reorganization you did is a definite improvement but it doesn't resolve that the tool forums are pushed together and so technical questions or ideas all end up in the same place despite the build, hardware, and architecture being so different. But in the spirit of Dorn's comment, I think linking between the tools to express lineage and similarities will also be useful. It would be cool to link Fido 1.0 to Rover (a direct variant) and then to link to Fido 2.0 too but as an alternative solution (if you have WiFi range).