Subject: re a Big Idea

From: Mike Bossingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 07:13:38 -0400

Hi,

I have never contributed to this list before, so do be kind to me.

Let me introduce myself. I am a theology and a computer science graduate
and I am currently working (part time unfortunately) on a Doctorate
attached to Birmingham University under David Parker.

I am developing software that will allow the creation of a comprehensive
electronic critical edition. It currently will:-

1) Display selected verses along with an apparatus.

2) Select the witnesses that are display in the apparatus - thereby
allowing users to filter out witnesses they are not interested in.

3) All the user to select the base text - ie if you wish you can have P66
as the base text. All Apparatii are then automatically rebuilt to reflect
the new base text.

4) Print selected witnesses.

5) Stores notes about verses, witnesses and editions

In the near future it will be able to:-

1) display collations (and compare them with what is in an Apparatus)

2) display (if they can be made available) scanned images of manuscripts.

3) Search for a particular word in both the base text and selected
variants.

The software runs on a PC under Windows 3.1 (it also works under NT and
95). When my work is complete (and progress is slow because I am a Part
Time student and full time Minister) I am prepared to offer it to the TC
community.

With some thought, planning and co-orperation it would be possible using
this software to build a massive critical edition through the Internet.

Regards

Rev Mike Bossingham
Maidenhead,
Berks.

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 09:30:33 -0700

On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Mike Bossingham <[email-masked]> wrote,

>Time student and full time Minister) I am prepared to offer it to the TC

Let me add my support to that expressed by others. But I'm going to
ask a technical question or two.

I'm a bit concerned that this software is PC-specific. Partly that's
personal, because I use a Macintosh. But there's also a general
concern. Anything that is to be used over the Internet *should* run
under UNIX, in some form. This, ideally, would allow queries over
the net.

So I would ask, what language are you using? (I don't suppose it's
Perl, is it? That would be perfect for the job, and it's available
*free* for Mac, PC, and UNIX.) Second, what flavour of the language?

I assume, since this is for Windows, that there is some sort of
graphical interface. Are you writing that yourself, or are you 
using some sort of library? And are you keeping the I/O code
modularized so that porting is possible?

Just the thoughts of a programmer who wants this project to succeed....

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

                            Robert B. Waltz
                         [email-masked]

Want more loudmouthed opinions about textual criticism?
Try my web page: http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn
(A very rough draft of part of the Encyclopedia of NT Textual Criticism)

---

From: "James R. Adair" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 01:01:27 -0400 (EDT)

I'm certainly interested in the program that Mike is developing, but like
Bob, I think it is essential that it run on more than one platform, and
especially under Unix.  Mike, could you tell us what language you are
using?  Maybe we can figure out a way to port it to Perl, or maybe even C
or Java (platform independence!).  If you are willing to share your
software and some demo data at this stage of your work, even if it only
works on PCs at the moment, I would like to put it on the TC FTP site for
others to look at (including myself!).  If you would like to share it,
send it to ftp://scholar.cc.emory.edu/uploads, and I'll move it to the TC
part of the site (ftp://scholar.cc.emory.edu/pub/TC).

Jimmy Adair
Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press
    and
Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site
---------------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu <-----------------

---

From: Matthew Johnson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 13:53:40 -0700 (PDT)

> *free* for Mac, PC, and UNIX.) Second, what flavour of the language?
To which I reply:

Yes, Perl would be good, especially if you write in Perl 4.036 rather than
the new Perl5 (has Perl5 for NT even been debugged yet?).

But why not Java?
Matthew Johnson
Waiting for the blessed hope and the appearance of the glory of our 
great God and Saviour Jesus Christ (Ti 2:13).

---

From: "Gregory J. Woodhouse" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 14:36:08 -0700 (PDT)

Hey, what do you know--I actually get to comment on something from the
perspective of my own profession. (With regards to TC, I'm afraid I'm one
of those people on the list who work professionally in an other field but
still have an interest in textual criticism.)

> the new Perl5 (has Perl5 for NT even been debugged yet?).

There is no such thing as software which has been "debugged". Even
relatively simple programs can be so complex that it's not even possible
to exercise all execution paths.

> But why not Java?

Of course, the same comment applies to Java. But I do think working in
Java is an excellent idea. I'm starting to use it more and more in my own
work. The AWT is pretty rudimentary, but it is still possible to produce
attractive user interfaces in Java. Database-wise, there is JDBC, and
though I haven't looked at JavaBeans yet, I believe is supports OpenDoc
(CORBA's answer to OLE). All in all, it seems like a good approach.

> great God and Saviour Jesus Christ (Ti 2:13).

---
[email-masked]    /    http://www.wnetc.com/home.html
If you're going to reinvent the wheel, at least try to come
up with a better one.

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 17:47:49 -0700

On Fri, 18 Apr 1997, Matthew Johnson <[email-masked]> wrote:

[ ...Those not interested in programming would be wise to omit... ]

>the new Perl5 (has Perl5 for NT even been debugged yet?).

Several reasons, all minor in themselves but adding up to a major one:

1. Java is *slow*. It will get faster -- but as an object-oriented
   language with a zillion classes, it will never be really fast.

2. Perl has all sorts of constructs for database work and text
   munging. Java doesn't have very many. It's a bigger programming
   task.

3. Not many people really understand Java yet. Of course, not all
   that many people understand Perl either....

4. Perl is everywhere on the net, and can be used to serve the data.
   Java runs on the user's machine, and is not such a competent server.

Java is, of course, the up-and-coming language, and if the programming
task were easy, it would be the first choice. But it's so *un*-ideal
that I would be inclined to avoid it.

On Fri, 18 Apr 1997, Matthew Johnson <[email-masked]> further
wrote, in part:

>2) You mentioned that WIndows can be emulated on the Mac.  This is true, 
>but the emulator is an expensive commercial product.  Even worse, the 
>680x0 version is NOT being maintained; they update only the PowerPC 
>version of the product.

Actually, there is good news on that count. Connectix (the people who
made Mode32, SpeedDoubler, etc.) are planning to come out with a
PC emulator in the next year or so. Official pricing has not been
set, but they sound like it will be less than $100. And my guess is
that it will be *fast*.

But that still doesn't solve the UNIX problem.

>(CORBA's answer to OLE). All in all, it seems like a good approach.

Unfortunately, OpenDoc is dead. Not buried, but dead. Both Apple and
IBM have ceased to update it. Apple has announced that they will not
port it to Rhapsody (the Mac version of NextStep). So, on Apple
machines, it will have to run in emulations. PC clones probably
never will support it properly.

One of Apple's stupider moves, but I think -- given the current
generally lousy stability of OpenDoc dependent programs --
that developers would be well advised to stay away from anything
that even smells of OpenDoc.

                            Robert B. Waltz
                         [email-masked]