[sword-devel] Why Sword?

[Martin Gruner]

> In response to various open source Bible projects not using Sword as a
> basis, I would like to post some propaganda on the website to encourage
> people to use Sword rather than build their own solutions from scratch.
> It's their right to do so, but I think they do so because of erroneous
> or misguided conceptions that I would like to dispell.  Please read
> through what I have written and contribute ideas and suggestions for
> improvement.  I'm looking for comments on content, tone, gross
> omissions, etc. especially from you folks who actually use Sword to
> build software.

Very good idea. I am going to comment on a few statements, please correct me 
if I'm wrong.

> Sword removes much of the burden of designing new Bible software.  Most
> of the underlying issues, such as search, file access, verse reference
> parsing, markup format interchange, i18n/l10n, etc. have already been
> dealt with, allowing you the opportunity to focus on interface design
> and unique features.  

Well, i18n and l10n are still quite at the beginning. You should not say 
"have been dealt with". The versification scheme is still to come -- is that 
what you mean by l10n?

> Custom
> translation APIs provide the means for building l10n support in your
> applications without needing to add or depend on additional 3rd party
> libraries.

What are you referring to?

> Sword provides a simple to use and easy to learn API.

=) I really hope it were so. ;) We should work more on documentation, esp. 
making the api-ref more complete and explaining.

But in general I really agree!


Martin