[jsword-devel] I'm praying the smartest developers of JSword will get together.

[avolunteer DrStovallFoundation]

> Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:58:54 -0500
> From: DM Smith <dmsmith at crosswire.org>
...
> To me the issue is that of accessibility not build.
RIGHT ON!
Today the majority of the third world has rapidly adapted cell phones and computers are still slowly coming along.  This week the 8 largest convention centers across Indonesia will begin to be filled as Google and Indosat launch Android to compete with the hundreds of thousands of inferior Blackberries sold last year.

Thirty-six years ago when I started in computers I was as smart as some of you young developers concerning the technology of that era.  But I was not smart enough to plan for the future in the best way.  Before I was part of the team that did the design for one of the most advanced computers of that era I wasted my time learning all of the software that was popular then instead of what would be used in the future.  

Today, I saw this blog by James Strachan the author of Groovy. 
http://java.dzone.com/articles/scala-long-term-replacement
He said he used and liked Java but he would never have written Groovy if he had known about Scala because Scala is the long term replacement for Java and a joy to use.

I once was so stupid that I had to have another computer designer tell me, "Don't develop on what everybody is using today.  Develop on what people will want in the future.  Even though it is too expensive today, by the time your development is finished everybody will be in the future and want what you have.  If you develop for today it will be obsolete and no one will want it."

About 1995, C++ was the language most likely to get you a job.  But a small group of very smart people not long after that said, We are leaving C++ and going to Java because we can't get....  In December of 2007, Java was the language most likely to get you a job.  But this same small group of people said, We are leaving Java and going to Scala because we can't get ....  

The jobs are still in Java but Scala is coming along faster and faster.  Development tools are still focused more on Java but Scala now takes only a little more effort.  But the future of computing is distributed processing not 1 cpu desktops.  But the future of cell phones is bigger than the future of computers.  Android or other multi-tasking cell phones are the future not one thing at a time Blackberries or iPhones.  

Up to today, Crosswire has focused upon developers communicating and agreeing for one to take a certain little improvement and just do it.  This has brought us a long way and I really admire each contributor and all of their little improvements.  But I think the time has come for us to go back to square one and do something which is so easy and obvious that even a beginning programmer can quickly understand and join.  I just reread John 17.  Jesus pours out Heart requesting His vision of the future where all believers might be one in the sense that He and the Father are ONE so that the whole world might know.  We will have maximum impact only after we are one to a greater extent than we now are.  The best way to do this is to grab the jvm language of the future which is easiest to understand and move forward from square one with such good communication and simplicity that beginners can understand and join on their cell phones.  The only way I see us
 being able to accomplish this is to start redoing JSword on Scala for the Java Virtual Machine and for Android.

A Volunteer

Darkness, confusion, and trauma are an ideal environment for the greatest evil.  This occurs after disasters.  You can do something to overcome evil with good.
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