Warp wrote in message <38e1c093@news.povray.org>...
>Peter J. Holzer <hjp### [at] sikituwsracat> wrote:
>:>I see no reason to add programmatic constructs, like loops and branches,
>
>: Am I missing something? Povray already has loops and branches.
>


Forgive me my ignorance - I use POV in relative isolation from this
community (until now), and have
never required the use of loops and branches, and so I've never tried to
find out if it's possible.  Of course,
I use flow control structures in my pov generators.  I guess this reduces
the credibility of my discussion somewhat,
but hopefully not disastrously.

>  Thus, what he is saying is that they should be removed.

I seem to be implying this but it's quite an emotive statement, so I need to
state my position.  I am saying that
I'd like to see loops and branches raised out of the scene description
language, and be association I'm saying
legacy source files with flow control structures should be supported but
deprecated.


a lot to be gained by separating out the separate theoretical constructs,
especially when considering POV in 5 years.  I feel the best separation is
that of declarative vs. procedural.  The scene language should be
declarative, and programmers should be allowed to choose which ever
procedural language they wish to write the declarative part.  I shudder when
I hear discussions of what syntax a "loop" construct should take.  Why
choose?

The case for raising branches is less strong - after all a branch can be
considered both procedurally (i.e. what do I do next?) and declaratively
(e.g. under what conditions do I do this?).

Anyway, I think I'm moving away from my general point - that POV should
focus on making advanced rendering techniques available, and use the file
format to facilitate this.  I  think the POV team and community should focus
not on becoming a more general programming environment, but on better
linkage to programming environments.

There are a multitude of different ways to support this, but the constraints
are equally expansive, so I'm happy to leave that discussion to another day.

Cheers,
Nick Drew

HyperSpace Ltd,Birmingham Research Park, Edgbaston, UK, B15 2SQ
(e): hyp### [at] btinternetcom                          (t):+44 (0)121 414
7019

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