[sword-devel] Getting rid of BibleCS (was Re: [bt-devel] Eureka!!)

[Jonathan Morgan]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 5:49 AM, DM Smith <dmsmith at crosswire.org> wrote:
> Jonathan Morgan wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 10:06 PM, Troy A. Griffitts
>> <scribe at crosswire.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Congratulations guys!!! This is great news!  Our Windows users now have
>>> choices 4+ choices!   We're really going to have to redo our CD autorun
>>> splash to present these choices to our users.
>>>
>>
>> This is now the time to consider again removing the unsupported "Sword
>> for Windows", which is condemned by many and misleads many about the
>> potential of the Sword platform because it appears to be the official
>> (and thus the "best") one to casual onlookers.
>
> Ouch.
>
> The SWORD Project for Windows (BibleCS) is supported. It is kept current
> with each release of the SWORD engine. It is the showcase for all the
> features of the engine.

Change it to unmaintained.  Compiling it against the latest engine
doesn't qualify it as being maintained, IMHO, and it has a number of
problems that are very unlikely to be fixed, given it is (again, as
far as I can tell) unmaintained.

And I'm sorry to break it to you, but most users are not in the least
interested in what engine was used.  Many use BibleCS as an indication
of the quality of the Sword project as a whole and run away.

Just think about how it sounds saying "Our flagship project, the Sword
project for Windows, is unmaintained and so we can't make those
changes you suggested.  However, just believe me that the Sword
Project is still in good shape".

> While I use Bible Desktop, that's because I am the lead developer for it and
> I prefer it's work flow to any of the other choices. (To be fair, I have not
> looked at the others within the last year.) There are some features of BT,
> Xiphos, MacSword, AlKitab and BibleCS that I would like to add to it.
>
> Most of the criticisms that I hear about BibleCS relate to how it looks, not
> what it does.

Which is exactly how many users will evaluate it (perhaps most).

> I think Manfred's comment about people not developing for the
> Mac is true for Windows too. What developer has jumped in to improve
> BibleCS?

What reason would a developer have to improve it? (note: this is not
just causing trouble, it is a genuine question.  I have never seen any
reason based on what it is now to touch BibleCS code, and I have
actually read some of it).

> One of the things that BibleCS does well is run on legacy and current
> hardware. I found out the hard way with Bible Desktop that there are many
> out there that have ancient machines with an ancient OS (e.g. Win 98) that
> still want a viable, free Bible program.
>
> I applaud Xiphos and BibleTime for coming to Windows. Each provides a
> different way at approaching God's Word. Now we have 5 major, supported
> frontends for Windows that people can choose from! (I'm including AlKitab)

But not, it appears, including BPBible, which is a very interesting
thing given the number of downloads it has, and certain other
advantages that I am too biased to report on impartially.

However, I'm afraid that it is a fact that (whatever they may say)
most users do not want choice.  They want to get something that just
works.  Based on this, they will pick the first on the list as the
best, and often do reject the whole project based on that "best" one.
You can see my previous emails on the subject for more detail there.

Jon