[sword-devel] New website - installation instructions

[Greg Hellings]

On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 4:19 PM, Eeli Kaikkonen
<eekaikko at mail.student.oulu.fi> wrote:
> 2. The end user should have the final word after the initial phase. We
> should think what happens when the user installs the first application, then
> installs some modules with that, then installs another application, installs
> modules with that... All frontends should use the library API/files/paths so
> that if the user configurates things with one app it's seen in another app,
> too. If user takes off some paths they should be taken off from all
> frontends. If user adds some paths they should be added for all frontends.
> If user changes the default install location it should be changed for all
> frontends. This all should work independend of the app install location and
> not depending whether the app uses a statically build Sword library or
> shared one.

Personally I see the joy in this, but it also strikes me as somewhat
anti-Windows.  When I'm in a Unix-like environment, I expect that my
vi, vim and gvim will all read the same ~/.exrc (I think that's the
name of it), then vim and gvim will read ~/.vimrc and then gvim will
also read yet another file (~/.gvimrc, IIRC).  However, in Windows,
I'm not expecting that behavior.  My perception of Windows programs is
that they're more siloed than their Unix counterparts.  While I am
deep in the workings of SWORD and sort of can see why this behavior
would be nice for developers and programmers, I definitely wouldn't
expect it, if I wasn't aware that the various applications share so
much of a common heritage.

Judging from how I look at programs in Windows - even if they are all
capable of reading the the same file formats pulled from the same
electronic library, it might startle me that changing a configuration
in, say, GnomeSword, changes how my BPBible works, while installing
what I thought was an application-specific module in BibleCS results
in the same thing appearing in BibleTime.  I'd imagine most people who
aren't deeply steeped in SWORD lore and who aren't familiar with the
concept of the shared library (or cross-platform library, to be more
accurate) across the applications might be curious and report to the
BibleTime people, "My BibleTime is reading files from The SWORD
Project for Windows.  Help!" or to the BibleCS group, "BibleCS deleted
my GnomeSword modules - why'd it do that?"

Just my impressions from the world of Windows/Unix differences.

--Greg