Surely the first thing that came to many mind (my included) when thinking about doing a software/computer-based project to server the Lord is to create a Bible application. What else can explain the glorious number of Bible applications that one can find online. Just like the many Bible versions that one can choose from, there are online, open source, free, shareware, or commercial packages, so many Bible programs to choose from.
For those interested in working on the Bible in the electronic format, there is yet another layer of choices to wade through before going right into the heart of working on the application itself.
Not only are there many Bible versions and Bible software, there are also many Bible encoding formats, which includes OSIS, USFM, Zefania, ThML and some others.
When I jumped in and started researching on an idea to create an application around the Bible text, little did I expect the initial Bible encoding hurdle would be so high.
The philosophical background and a discussion of the different encoding format had been very well covered by Kahunapule Michael Johnson. These articles are good starting points to anyone wanting to learn about the different Bible encoding formats.
This detour opened my eyes to new level of understanding of the Bible encoding format. One thing that could comes out from this exercise is that it forces anyone who intents to work on the Bible in electronic format to gain a deeper insight into the complexity of the undertaking. Those that persisted and comprehened the working details of the formats would then build perseverance for the endeavor to come.