Ken,

I feel the need to make a contribution to the debate here, as I have been
involved in the discussion of changing the POV syntax and am about to submit a
proposal to a new POV-Ray language (PRL?), as a part in the making of my
Masters of Arts essay. My intention (and purpose with the research part) is to
investigate if it is possible to keep backwards compatibility when re-defining
a programming language (in this case: PRL or POV-Script as we know it). This
will consequently be my mission - to develop a language that is powerful when
you need it, yet easy to use if you're not a programming expert.

The OO-approach comes somewhat naturally as I see it, as the world in POV-Ray
consists of just that - objects. The spheres, cubes, cylinders, etc. that we
describe are all representations of physical objects. We already have the
object{[object identifier]}keyword, and the #declare MyThingy = sphere{..} is
equivalent to a class description.

I think I have mentioned this before, but I might as well say it again: The
new POV-script I am thinking of is fully backwards compatible i.e. you should
still be able to just describe a scene in no particular order, just as you
always have. Some OO-features will hopefully be possible, but you will not
have to write #declare MySphere1 = new sphere(<0,0,0>, new size(0.5), new
texture(new pigment(color new vector(<1,1,1>))))); or something as
(java-)horrible as that to create a white sphere. But, you should be able to
access the attributes of the objects in the scene, for example: #declare
camera.location = MySphere1.location - <0,0,5>;

I'm very open for suggestions, as I'm merely a POV user and we (the POV users)
should collaborate to keep POV as the best free raytracer available.

- Mikael.

----------------------------------------------------
Mikael Carneholm
Dep. of Computer Science and Business Administration


Personal homepage:
http://www.studenter.hb.se/~arch
E-mail:
sa9### [at] idautbhbse

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