[sword-devel] Unicode Bible program

[Paul Gear]

Joel Mawhorter wrote:
> 
> ...
> >From what I got out of cvs, it looks like Troy was porting the actual Sword
> library to Java not creating bindings (Is that right Troy?). I think the best
> option would be to use the stuff that Troy has ported to Java and create a
> completely Java version of Sword (library and frontend). This option has a few
> advantages:
> ...
> 2. The current Sword development could continue without getting side-tracked by
> the changes that would be required for Unicode support.
> ...

Let me say it another way: Unicode is not a side-track; it is a key
development area.  It will happen in the core Sword libraries as soon as
there is enough demand on the user side and time on the programmer side.

IMO, it's better not to duplicate effort, but don't let me tell you what
to do.  I would just suggest that if at all possible that you
collaborate with others with the same goals.

I have been convicted by the Lord recently that most of my reasons for
doing things with Bible software come from my pride and stubborness, not
his leading, and that sometimes my technical perfectionism needs to take
a back seat to his kingdom's goals, and compromises need to be made.

> I've been doing some playing around with Java to see if this is feasible and
> easy. So far it looks like it would be very easy to support this kind of program
> in Java. The only possible issue is speed. I'm going to play with it a bit more
> to see if Java is fast enough. The Swing compontents I've been playing with
> seem fairly responsive on my fairly slow Pentium 166. With well designed text
> searching/indexing algorithms, I don't think that speed would be a problem.
> I'll let you know what I discover when I've had a bit more time to experiment.

It was certainly a snail on my 586/133.  :-)  Another option between the
two you mentioned would be to compile Java to machine code on specific
platforms that supported it, or perhaps use a mixed interpreted/compiled
setup.  I've read that this is possible now on gcj, although i don't
know how well it works.

Paul
---------
"He must become greater; i must become less." - John 3:30
http://www.bigfoot.com/~paulgear