This is /must be a fascinating topic , I only wish I knew what your all talking about.
Can somebody please explain in simple lay-mans terms what it all means ?
I`m sure us less technical / computer illiterates would love to know what your all so excited about . Pardon my ignorance.
smiddy
What slii is doing is a lot more complicated. But the short description is this: The thread starts out with the intent of taking the the 1983 and the 2013 version of the NWT and comparing them. We all know that they were thinking of sneaking in some changes, and we wanted to find out what the full extent of the changes might be. After all, they might change the text of scripture in more ways to support their doctrine - we call all see that happening, and so we wanted to employ the services of a computer to find the changes.
It started out trying to get the 2013 text from a PDF file, but eventually we got it from the web (which was a lot easier). Until the WTB&TS put the 2013 on the web, we were trying to get the text of the new version from the PDF and then from the android app. The day they put the 2013 version on the web was the day I cracked the andrioid app encrpytion and compression. I did this by following the decomiled java code from the app.
After we had the text from both versions of the NWT, I ran it through a diff algorithm and then created the two PDFs.
Now slii is trying to crack the format of the PUB files in the WTLIB. That is definitely a difficult task, and it would be cool if he pulls it off. I went ahead and took the easy way out and got the entire WTLIB content through the WTLIB itself by creating a program to automate a human-like behavoir of clicking each item in the wtlib one at a time and then copying the translated content (by the wtlib program itself) into a text file, one for each topic the wtlib itself lists. It's like those DVD manufacturers in the early 2000s coming up with a DVD format that could only be read by special DVD players, and thinking that they have thwarted the pirates - only to realize (too late I might add), that they would simply buy the new DVD player and plug it into the back of their computer and make a video that way.
Anyhow, more to come soon.
MMM