@Apognophos:
Yep, the removal of brackets was actually mentioned as part of the talks at the AGM when the Bible was introduced. That output is probably good enough to make a PDF for those who want to read through it carefully and deliberatively (I guess we're looking at distributing by torrent after all).
I'm embarrassed to say this, but I am having serious second thoughts about whether I should still take the time to try to group and filter changes by kind. Unfortunately I am right in the middle of a super-important project that I don't think I should postpone. This has been the case for a while, but I didn't mention it because I was planning to put that work on hold while I worked on this NWT project, but this weekend my business partner moved up the timetable that my project is connected to, and now I don't know if I can afford to delay my work on it by even a week.
Just as importantly, it seems to me that a program that sorts changes by type will only be of limited use, as the importance of a change is not determined just by its nature , but by its position . For instance, an inserted comma could be incredibly important one time out of a hundred, and this important comma would be lost in the mix if I shunted all punctuation changes into their own group, because no one would have the patience to look through the Added/Removed Commas group to see if any were noteworthy. The same goes for other kinds of changes, whether it's dropping the progressive action tenses (mostly unimportant, but may occasionally be significant), or anything else. It might be better after all to just present all changes in one place, like MMM's last sample output above, and let the reader look up specific verses that are doctrinally significant and simply take in all the changes to those verses at once.
I am irritated with myself for starting this project and then managing to contribute absolutely nothing. It paints me as much more of a flake than I actually am. But the timing of the project simply is very poor for me, as it turns out. I might still come back to the idea of grouping changes when time permits, but I think that for now I need to focus on the other project, which is potentially life-changing for me, if things pan out and if I give it my all. I am also going to disconnect from the forum at large again, as it takes too much of my time. However, I will continue to actively check this thread and respond as warranted.
I'm very grateful that someone showed up who actually could do this work better than I could, plus had the time to do it! Thanks to MeanMrMustard for all his work so far. If anyone else wants to work on grouping and filtering changes, I would be glad to give advice, though I think the problem I outlined above is a significant one to overcome.
No worries! This has been a fun IT-action-packed thread. In the end, it allowed me to expand my skills a bit. I think I'll produce the PDF and let anyone have it that wants it. I'll also make the DB available to anyone as well. I know there aren't too many people that would want a copy, but its fine. I always considered coming up with a complete list of changes as the easy part. The hard part, as you have said, is taking that huge list of changes and coming up with a logical way to filter it down to the important changes. I am still open to suggestions on that.... :)
Sounds like a life-changing project should indeed take precedence! And you are right, posting on a forum can take up some time. I hope the project goes well for you.
MMM
