[sword-devel] Taming Wild Threads (was: Getting stuff done (Re: External links))

[Daniel Owens]

This discussion (despite the occasional vitriolic accusation or personal attack) is really important. There are two issues at stake--one is technical (and this discussion is producing collaboration on that), but the other is administrative, related to module creation, and that is my primary concern in this response. I'm not going to whine--I'm going to PLEAD and SUGGEST. We all want SWORD to be great, so in the interest of making SWORD great, here are my thoughts:

1. Modules are ESSENTIAL to the value of the SWORD engine. Please, let's make them a priority. It could be argued that they are already, but clearly there is frustration brewing among multiple module developers (including me) about the unnecessary difficultly involved in getting a module to work properly and be published. Clearly, in addition to work on filters, some work on administrative issues is necessary.

2. The Crosswire repo is a bottleneck. I think Chris needs help to get modules through in a timely manner. More people need to be involved at that step. PLEASE let's find a way to reduce the turnaround time for module publishing. I'm willing to contribute there.

3. Encouraging other repos is fine (especially if they are automatically set up in module installers--this is an exciting development!), but there is no documentation that I know of on how to set one up. I queried this list about problems I had and got no response. Please HELP. Even better, could someone create a wiki page on how to set up a repo?

4. Yes, let's maintain source files for ALL modules, only making them public if it is appropriate. That will facilitate bug fixing as well as new module creation. I obtained permission from Crossway to view the ESV source once, and that file had been lost. I still can't figure out how to create a source file that produces a compiled module with the features of the ESV module, and it's been over a year since I started working on it. It's NOT a matter of just using valid OSIS--you have to divine or accidentally discover a hack solution. If working modules were available as examples that would help folks like me and Peter learn how to create good source files.

5. I've only worked at learning OSIS and TEI, not ThML, but I have discovered that PRISTINE OSIS doesn't always work with SWORD, and ironically GnomeSword supports OSIS the best. Credit should go to Karl and the GnomeSword team for that. The wiki page presents an ideal, but in reality there is a SWORD OSIS schema that is unpublished and unarticulated. PLEASE, can we have an AUTHORITATIVE catalog of supported mark-up and a place to request valid OSIS mark-up that we want supported? If the former doesn't sound feasible, surely the latter is. No one should expect complete support of the OSIS schema, but things like headings, footnotes, and crossreferences should just work, but they sometimes don't. Additional markup should be able to be added, though.

Again, please read this as expressing a desire to help make SWORD great. Personality conflicts aside, these administrative issues need to be addressed What does everyone else think? 

Daniel 



-----Original Message-----
From: "Troy A. Griffitts" <scribe at crosswire.org>
To: "SWORD Developers' Collaboration Forum" <sword-devel at crosswire.org>
Sent: 11/26/08 11:30 PM
Subject: Re: [sword-devel] Taming Wild Threads (was: Getting stuff done (Re:	External links))

OK guys.  I'll make this brief.

Stop whining!  Everyone!

The SWORD Engine has multiple Remote Repo Install for this very purpose.

I like Karl's repo for all the reasons he mentions: quick new useful 
modules.

This is not the modus operandi for the CrossWire Remote Repo.  I don't 
want to hear about how some of our modules are worse then the ones in 
your repo-- we have more and 15 years of history.

We currently have almost the best of both worlds right now: we allow you 
to make your own repo and Karl has graciously done that.  It is so 
appreciated-- as is all his work.  The next release of the engine 
extends Install Manager to programmatically read a master list of known 
  SWORD Remote Repos and will automatically populate the user's repo 
list, instead of making them find new repos on our wiki.  Then we will 
really have the best of all worlds: multiple repos: quickly produced 
modules, OSIS validated modules, commercial repos, etc.

Karl and others already CAN release modules in their own repo and are 
doing so.  It is only proper for the official CrossWire repo to shoot 
for very high standard-- even if we haven't always met them.  If people 
would just TRY to help us meet them, then we might release more modules. 
  But that's also fine.  I realize people have their own itch and I'm 
truly grateful they scratch!

So shut up, kiss and make up.

Also:
I was going to exclaim that OSISHTMLHREF already handles <reference> and 
gives back what you'd expect, but it looks like the code was copied from 
ThML (I'm not even gonna use blame to see who did it.  I'll take the 
responsibility) and instead of looking for the tag attribute "osisRef", 
it looks for the ThML attributes "passage" and "version" :)  So, this is 
a quick fix and will be in the next rev.  If you need it before the next 
rev, you are very welcome to extend the filter and catch the <reference> 
tag to handle it correctly.

	-Troy.
	xoxo  ;)








Karl Kleinpaste wrote:
> Peter von Kaehne <refdoc at gmx.net> writes:
>> If someone brings us a good text to include, then we should be able to
>> say - "here, it works" and then gradualy improve it to make it better,
>> richer and more conforming to whatever lofty standards we want to achieve.
> 
> That is precisely how my TrainTwelve module came about.
> 
> Someone asked for it.  I found a copy available on the web.  I spent 2
> hours converting it, put it up, announced its availability.
> 
> The day after, I got 2 bug reports on it.  I fixed them.  New version
> went up.  It's been picked up 65 times already in the last 2.5 weeks.
> 
> _______________________________________________
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