[sword-devel] Introduction

[Troy A. Griffitts]

Welcome Scott,

	I'll try to answer a few of your questions.

> CLucene had the issue 
> with "lib/CLucene/clucene-config.h" instead of 
> "include/CLucene/clucene-config.h" mentioned in earlier e-mails,

There is a note about this problem in the SWORD INSTALL doc.  Search for 
clucene and you should find it.


> also got a compile error when using ICU 3.4.1 (I'm assuming no ICU 3.6 
> support yet, since it was only released Sept. 1).

I have 3.4 on my box.  The latest Windows software was compiled against 
3.6.  Both seem to work with latest SVN.  I'd be interested to hear what 
problem you had with 3.4.1.


>  I guess my question 
> is, how often is compatibility with CLucene and ICU checked, and how 
> important is it?

We usually check the latest available versions before a release.

>  - Latest BibleTime won't compile with latest Sword due to API breakage 
> between 1.5.8 and 1.5.9.  What is your policy (or rule of thumb) for 
> deprecating/obsoleting APIs?

We usually mark a method deprecated for quite some time before removing 
it.  2.0 is planned to be a final normalization of the API which will 
have all deprecated methods removed.


> I guess I was surprised that APIs changed 
> enough between minor revisions that applications wouldn't build.  Or did 
> I make a mistake somewhere?

Well, it's not your mistake.  Like the Linux kernel, we haven't followed 
even/odd release/development nomenclature for some time.  We usually 
release 1, or at best 2 revs a year, so 1.5.9 is not a 'minor' revision.


>  Is someone working on updating BibleTime to 
> work with Sword 1.5.9?

Yeah, I submitted a patch a fews days back to bring Bibletime up to 
SWORD 1.5.9.  It should be posted in the mailing list archives of 
bt-devel, here:

http://www.crosswire.org/pipermail/bt-devel/2006-September/006450.html

>  - Any ideas on where I could help out?

Scott, my suggestion for getting involved would be to frequent

irc.freenode.net #sword

and also check out the dated, but still sortof current roadmap in our 
bug database at:

http://crosswire.org/bugs/

my personal desires:

http://www.crosswire.org/~scribe/todo/

and an old wiki todo at:

http://www.crosswire.org/todo


Hope this was sortof helpful.  Looking forward to sharing together in 
ministry.

	-Troy.