[sword-devel] summary

[Matthew Talbert]

> Matthew,
>
> This is Chris and not the project. Chris is in a controlling position
> specifically with modules, but he is not the project leader. And the
> royal we in use is just this, a royal we and not a plural one. At least
> no plural has been demonstrated so far. Reference to the silent majority
> is not convincing.
>

Thank you for your encouragement both on and off the list.
Unfortunately, my interest in the sword project is mostly in the
modules, not the engine, so while things are run as they are currently
I don't believe I can participate. I know there are many saying that
participation precedes being listened to. I realize that I haven't
participated here much. I have lurked for quite some time, so I'm
familiar with the issues. It is only recently in my life that I have
been able to participate much, and recently that participation has
been mostly with Gnomesword.

But these issues are affecting me. I started working on Easton's as
practice for me. I first was going to try TEI as that was what was on
the wiki and appeared to be recommended. However, there is scarce
documentation, and the xsd is of little value to me. I understand what
it is, but it is quite overwhelming, and in my opinion meant to be
read by a computer, not a human. Also, I wasn't sure which part of the
TEI specification applied and what didn't. Furthermore, I couldn't
find any modules, or examples that used it and I was told on IRC that
there weren't any. Beyond that, one of the main concepts that I was
trying to implement was self-referencing links, and again I was told
on IRC (both times on the #sword channel) that TEI and OSIS support
wasn't finished yet. So, wanting something I could experiment with
more immediately, I used Thml and the sword:// method of linking. In a
few hours, I had a working module. This work allowed me to identify
several issues in my script unrelated to thml or linking, and I am
currently in the middle of re-working it to add more features and be
smarter about things. Once OSIS support arrives, it will be quite
simple to change my script to use that instead of thml. Because of my
experience here, I strongly object to telling newcomers to use OSIS
and OSIS references. This will undoubtedly lead to frustrated efforts
because they simply don't work in the frontends.

I understand the motivations behind moving to OSIS. I have no clue
what's the attraction about TEI, but I'm sure those reasons are valid
as well. If someone could point me to where that discussion took
place, it would be helpful to me.

When OSIS support arrives and is documented, I will use it. I don't
have time to figure it out on my own at this point. Thml does what I
need and allows me to experiment with different ideas about modules
that I have today, not some time in the future. I understand that this
is an open-source project, but forcing everyone to use OSIS while
implementation remains incomplete and the documentation is confusing
at best is a policy that is only going to lead to frustration. This
frustration is amply documented in these lists.

As I said above, I don't intend to submit my modules to the Crosswire
repository and my discussion with Chris is at an end. At this point, I
don't want to be involved in this list either, but I'm trying to not
make rash statements. I'm only trying to reply to some here who have
addressed me.

Matthew