[sword-devel] the release

[David Trotz]

Daniel,
Nothing stops you from creating a .dll for sword, it is, I am sure, a
welcome contribution and I can see you are trying to think through the
implications of a .dll. But our resources are thin enough already we cannot
simply begin a new project. This is where the beauty of Open Source Software
comes into play, you have an itch, you can scratch it and all others can
benefit from it. That is pretty much the norm in the Open Source world. I
know first hand that Troy spends more time scratching everyone elses itch,
that he rarely gets to scratch his own. Please if you have suggestions
great! But if you feel a need to pressure the team perhaps you should
consider contributing some action to your suggestions.
David

----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Blake" <danblake@tcdr.com>
To: <sword-devel@crosswire.org>
Sent: Friday, July 11, 2003 11:11 AM
Subject: RE: [sword-devel] the release


> Sorry it took so long for me to reply but I've been busy and I wanted to
> double-check my facts before I wrote back.
>
> There is, in fact, a DLL that was created. It is version 1.5.4a . I was
sure
> that I had downloaded one from the site before so I searched my server and
> found this file: sworddll-1.5.4a.zip
>
> As to the concern of not maintaining backwards compatibility I would
suggest
> a naming scheme for the DLL that had the version in the name
> "sword154a.dll", as an example. This way anyone writing a program would
> specify which DLL their program was written for. With this naming
> convention, having multiple DLLs on the same machine wouldn't cause any
> problems of compatibility and it wouldn't be much of a burden to people's
> storage space either.
>
> I want to preface my next thought with saying I am not trying to start a
> flame or sound know it all-ish. Keeping this in mind, I want to remind the
> people of this list what The Sword Projects MAIN purpose is: Here is the
> quote from the website.
>
> The SWORD Project is the CrossWire Bible Society's free Bible software
> project. Its purpose is to create cross-platform open-source tools,
covered
> by the GNU General Public License, that allow programmers and Bible
> societies to write new Bible software more quickly and easily. Its
secondary
> purpose is to amass a library of Bibles and other Scripture-related texts
> that can be used by all SWORD Project-based software.
>
> Our Statement of Purpose says that our first purpose is to create The
Sword
> Project for quick and easy software development. Couldn't quick and easy
be
> interpreted as Rapid Application Development (RAD)?  The Statement of
> Purpose says our SECONDARY purpose is to amass a library of modules for
use
> with the Sword Engine.
>
> As someone who is just learning to program my main contribution to this
> project is first prayer and second testing and suggestions. It is not my
> intention to step on toes or to preach, but if creating RAD Tools is the
> main purpose of this project then I don't see how we could stay away from
> creating DLLs or OCXs.
>
> I would just ask that we do an inventory of ourselves as a project to see
if
> we are keeping the balance of what was originally intended.
>
> 1) Create the tools.
> 2) Amass/create the libraries.
>
> Thank you for taking the time to read this long and opinionated post.
> Please see that my heart is to see the project go far and not to cause
> division.
>
> Daniel Blake
>
>
> > Since we don't maintain any compatability between library releases, this
> > is a bad idea.  If we start releasing sword.dll's, everything will break
> > between versions.
> >
> > Besides which, no Sword DLL exists, it would be a lot of work to create
> > & document one that works, etc.
> >
> > If you or someone else really feels like working on this project, we can
> > consider it for inclusion with 1.5.7.
> >
> > --Chris
> > >
> > >
> > > I suggest that before you release, please make a Sword
> > > Dynamic Link Library and distribute it, so that others can
> > > use it in VB, VC and Delphi.
> > >
> > > Paul
>
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