"Geoff" wrote in message
...
pruned

Anyway, a bit of software that will enable you to enter requirements and
then produce some suggestions would be splendid. Plus the ability to
cross
reference Latin names and common names would help too.

pruned

To produce such a software package would be very time consuming

....

Not really. It's only a straightforward database with a maximum of
say ten fields for each record and a maximum of say 10,000 records\plants.
Including images if needs be. Such a database could be accessed by using
standard query tools and a front end perfected in half a day. There are
most likely plenty of such databases already in existence, if not on the
market.

The biggest problem would probably be preventing copying and piracy.

....

therefore
expensive to buy. To amortize production costs would need a large
market
and there would be very few customers willing to pay many times more than
the cost of the RHS's Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers ISBN
0-86318-386-7.

And do not forget that eventually the programme might become unuseable.

....

So long as the core database is written in comma separated ASCII, that
won't actually matter. That format will be around until after the planet
melts, along with programming instructions in whatever language that comes
along, which are capable of reading sequential files, which can then be
converted to random access for speed in the actual implementation. The
core database can be transferred onto each new storage medium in whatever
new formats become available, as the need arises. While rewriting the front
end every few years would again be no big deal.


michael adams

....


Have you tried running a very old software programme only to find that
present day disc operating systems do not like it?


Books do not have that
problem!

Geoff