4 ms·

It all sounds so childish to me as a current atheist. Like, who's sports team are you a fan? If not mine, then you're against me. In fact, an API that allows

by r00fus 5y ago

It all sounds so childish to me as a current atheist. Like, who's sports team are you a fan? If not mine, then you're against me. In fact, an API that allows access to a religious text should be useful for everyone - even those detractors of said religion. Next up, we need a legal code API and versioning.

cat199 5y ago
many subgroups of atheism, and many of those fight and have fought each other.. agree 100% on legal code versioning - legislation should be a version control diff with 'git blame' like things for contributors ..
cphoover 5y ago
a law API makes sense to me because laws are updated all the time, especially when you take into consideration all the various jurisdictions. A Quran or biblical text API makes less sense to me because it is essentially unchanging static text until the religious doctrine is amended.
- CitrusFruits 5y ago
  Three things: 1. It may not be as unchanging as you think. The different translations of the Bible (NIV, ESV, NKJV, NASB, etc.) are a pretty important facet to many, with newer translations coming to prominence in English speaking communities every ten years or so (for better or for worse, but that's another topic). I can't speak to other religious texts, but keeping new translation available could be enough of a reason alone to make an API. 2. Having an API can facilitate internationalization if you wanted to ship a project in other languages. 3. Having an easy way for a computer to look up a particular passage is a non-trivial problem to solve, and something like this could give a huge jump start for hobby/personal projects. Yeah you could just download the Quran and reference it locally or someone could (relatively) easily roll their own version of this, but I think something like this is nice and I can appreciate it's value, even if Islam isn't my cup of tea. [edited for clarity]
bobthechef 5y ago
It's childish to have issues with someone making their religious texts available via API just because they take that religion to be false, yes. But you're sort of erecting a strawman. I don't see anyone claiming "I hate this API because I disagree with Islam.". Also maybe this is it? Haven't checked. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/content/help/webservice.html https://eur-lex.europa.eu/content/help/webservice.html

by r00fus 5y ago

cat199 5y ago

many subgroups of atheism, and many of those fight and have fought each other.. agree 100% on legal code versioning - legislation should be a version control diff with 'git blame' like things for contributors ..

cphoover 5y ago

a law API makes sense to me because laws are updated all the time, especially when you take into consideration all the various jurisdictions. A Quran or biblical text API makes less sense to me because it is essentially unchanging static text until the religious doctrine is amended.

CitrusFruits 5y ago
Three things: 1. It may not be as unchanging as you think. The different translations of the Bible (NIV, ESV, NKJV, NASB, etc.) are a pretty important facet to many, with newer translations coming to prominence in English speaking communities every ten years or so (for better or for worse, but that's another topic). I can't speak to other religious texts, but keeping new translation available could be enough of a reason alone to make an API. 2. Having an API can facilitate internationalization if you wanted to ship a project in other languages. 3. Having an easy way for a computer to look up a particular passage is a non-trivial problem to solve, and something like this could give a huge jump start for hobby/personal projects. Yeah you could just download the Quran and reference it locally or someone could (relatively) easily roll their own version of this, but I think something like this is nice and I can appreciate it's value, even if Islam isn't my cup of tea. [edited for clarity]

bobthechef 5y ago

It's childish to have issues with someone making their religious texts available via API just because they take that religion to be false, yes. But you're sort of erecting a strawman. I don't see anyone claiming "I hate this API because I disagree with Islam.". Also maybe this is it? Haven't checked. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/content/help/webservice.html https://eur-lex.europa.eu/content/help/webservice.html