Matt Giwer <jul### [at] ijnet> wrote:
: 	Introducing additional syntaxes raises more problems than it
: solves.

  I don't think so.
  A more compact and clearer syntax makes the code more readable and minimizes
the possibility of errors.
  For example, suppose you have this:

#declare XLoopIndex1 = 0;
#while(XLoopIndex1 < 100)
  ...
  (30 lines of code)
  ...
  #declare XLoopindex1 = nextValue();
#end

  When one reads the code he will most probably not remember the name of
the loop index after reading the 30 lines of code and the typing mistake
will most probably pass unnoticed. Povray will not issue any error since
there's no syntax nor semantic error. However, the parsing will perform an
endless loop.

  Compare it to this:

#for ( XLoopIndex1 = 0; XLoopIndex1 < 100; XLoopindex1 = nextValue )
  ...
  (30 lines of code)
  ...
#end

  Now since all the commands related to the loop index are at the same line,
noticing the typing mistake is more probable.
  Also understanding the functionality of the loop is much easier to see now,
since you don't have to search for the end of the loop to see how does the
loop index change.

  Also this new syntax would be very handy sometimes:

#do
  ...
#until(whatever)

  There really are times, where you want to execute the body of the loop at
least once before the ending condition is tested (for example the condition
is calculated in the body of the loop).
  With the current #while-loop you would have to calculate the condition
in two places: First before the loop, and then inside the loop. Copying the
same code to several places is not a good thing.

  In a similar way the +=, -=, etc. operators will allow to avoid copying of
code to several places (specially if the variable to modify is a very long
statement).

: 	Next, complex conditional if then else statements.

  What's this?

: Can GOTO be far behind?

  I don't think that goto will be needed. I do think that #break and #continue
statements inside a loop would be handy.

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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