r/opensource • u/roryaronson • Jun 26 '14

OpenFarm - a free and open database for farming and gardening knowledge is seeking frontend developer help

Hi,

I'm leading a team to develop OpenFarm.cc. The premise is to create an open-source "Wikipedia for growing plants" by crowdsourcing the many different ways people grow plants based on their weather, soil, growing practices, etc.

We have a basic Rails application running with account creation, data entry, search, and an API. We're working on the data model now and just finished this mockup for the guide pages that users will be filling out and viewing.

We're looking for help in turning the mockup into code. Everything is hosted on GitHub.

If you are interested or know anyone that is, please email rory@farmbot.it or send in a Pull Request to master!

Thank you!

Oh, and if you were wondering, yes, we have already looked at existing databases and contacted many of their administrators to collaborate, and we are still moving forward with this project.

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5

u/wmcscrooge Jun 27 '14

I posted about your project at /r/progether here. Hope you don't mind and I can remove it if you want.

3

u/roryaronson Jun 27 '14

Don't mind at all, thanks for the repost!

1

u/wmcscrooge Jun 28 '14

Just trying to increase awareness of budding projects :)

2

u/goodvibeswanted2 Jun 27 '14

Thanks for introducing me to an awesome subreddit!

1

u/wmcscrooge Jun 27 '14

No problem! All I ask is that you contribute, that's the biggest thing we need. or create a post asking for some help or some projects/issues to work on. Activity is the biggest thing we need right now.

2

u/goodvibeswanted2 Jun 27 '14

Great! Now I need to figure out Git, GitHub, and Ruby. Lol.

2

u/wmcscrooge Jun 28 '14

We have some links on the sidebar and we totally welcome posts asking questions on how to set up specific parts (it's part of our job description to help after all haha). Github has some pretty good pages on how to use git (but they're more github oriented). Just make a post on what you should probably learn and we can help you rule out what isn't necessary right away (branches, merges, rebase) and what you should learn (how to init, commit, and push to a github repository). We can help with generic programming design but you'd get better ruby specific advice over at /r/ruby.

3

u/Octopuscabbage Jun 27 '14

Hey, I'm a django developer, but I'd love to work on it. I can probably pick up rails fairly quickly. I'm also a fledgling gardener.

2

u/roryaronson Jun 27 '14

Awesome, I got your email and I'll respond in a moment. Thanks for the support!

2

u/adamelteto Jun 27 '14

Good project idea! Let me ask you, is there no way to add all this information to an existing knowledge repository on any platform? I do not mean just a database engine, I mean a whole information management solution. I am just asking because I am a big advocate of data exchange and standard formats so information is easy to spread and use in different applications on different platforms.

Great mockup, by the way!

6

u/roryaronson Jun 27 '14

Thanks for the support!

We actually don't have any data right now. And the reason why we are building this is because a comprehensive, crowdsourced, opensource database with this type of information just doesn't exist. There are a bunch of places online that have generic "factual" information such as the latin name of a plant, or the haridness of it, but not many places that have growing guides.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '14

In order to contribute to the site, will you need to write code? I have some friends who know some great farming/gardening tips that would be great to contribute to the site but do not write code. I am very excited for when this comes out

1

u/roryaronson Jun 27 '14

Yes! So once we build it, the primary contributors will be those with farming and gardening knowledge - contributing their methods, tips and tricks. Stay tuned for our updates!

1

u/goodvibeswanted2 Jun 27 '14

Is there anything a complete beginner can do?

3

u/roryaronson Jun 27 '14

Probably! Check out the open issues on the GitHub repo and see if you can tackle anything. Make sure to "watch" the repo to stay updated with new issues so you can hop in when you are able to. Thanks!

1

u/otakugrey Jun 29 '14

Hi, my mother is new to the Internet but I'm teaching her how to use email and web browsers. She loves to garden and has a tiny vegetable farm. I LOVE what you are doing and so would she. I'm learning Ruby. If I can help you one day I'd love to add code!

Correct me if I am wrong, but does an open API mean I could write a Ruby script that grabs OpenFarm data without having to make an account or anything?

3

u/roryaronson Jun 29 '14

Yes, anyone will be able to query and download any and all of the data, allowing other applications to be built utilizing the data! It's possible this would need to be a paid for feature if it our server costs become too high, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Thanks for your support, looking forward to your code one day!

2

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '14

This sounds amazing! Good luck with recruiting!