[sword-devel] Do yoe need this BiblePresenter?

[Chris Little]

On Sat, 8 May 2004, Wolfgang Schultz wrote:

> mg.pub at gmx.net schrieb:
> 
> >Hi Wolfgang,
> >
> >I think that would be a nice start of a cooperation between sword and zefanja, 
> >if it is a bidirectional converter OSIS<->ZEFANJA.
> >
> [..]
> 
> Hi Martin,
> 
> OSIS to Zefania ist already done by our  Textkonverter ;-)
> 
> http://zefania.de/xmlbible/tools/zefCon/conv060304.jpg
> 
> Download it here:
> 
> http://www.zefania.de/html/zefania_xml_textkonverter.html

OSIS is many many many times more complex than Zefania.  There is 
absolutely, positively zero possibility of creating an OSIS to Zefania 
converter that is able to handle real OSIS documents.  By "real OSIS 
documents" I mean documents encoded for publishers, like the NIV or GNB or 
CEV.  Bibles are far too complex for an encoding like Zefania XML.

If I could choose to convince you of anything, it would be to drop Zefania 
XML.  Before Zefania XML, there were half a dozen publicly available 
specifications for encoding Bibles.  All of them remain superior to 
Zefania.
 
> Please note at this time it converts only bible texts, because zefania 
> markup for other texts is still under construction :-X

Have you considered just using OSIS?  Why do you continue to try to 
re-invent the wheel.  Academics, engineers, and members of the publishing 
industry all collaborated on OSIS.  Do you honestly think you're going to 
create something better, in the process of creating something 
incompatible?

> I will put "Zefania to OSIS" on my personal  to do list and inform you 
> if i have done this task.

Zefania XML to OSIS is trivial since Zefania XML is such a simplistic
format.  A hundred lines of XSLT or about half as many of Perl could do
it.  But it's also pointless.  Sword already has OSIS export capabilities,
as you know, and already has all of the content available in Zefania XML
format.

--Chris