> Documenting ONLY the built-in has a big advantage: there
> is no last minute addition/update and the Team can focus on
> the code.

I can understand that to some extent, but is that not up to the POV-Team to make those
changes? They could easily say official add-ons will be modified and distributed by
the same routine the same as compiles.


> Moreover, there is few built-in and the syntax is usually
> decided and fixed (with optional part too).
> With macro, somes may want to make generic parameter
>  (such as first argument is always a vector, the second a map,...)
>  even when the argument is a non-sense for a specific macro,
> whereas others may want a dedicated parameter list per macro.
> and so on.

I don't think so. With MegaPOV and upcoming 3.5 functions, the macro can serve the
same exact purpose as a function and be used practically the same as a keyword. Most
of the built-in patterns don't even take parameters, for those that do they would be
analogous to function parameters and the number would depend on the pattern itself.
The only problem I can see is optional parameters (like you said), since there is no
macro overloading.


> And back to the speed argument, if it is easy to do with a macro,
> it's ok with me, especially if the macro avoid me to type a hundred line
> (and moreover, allow me to easily perform quickly update to the
> scene [because I only need to modify the macro definition and not
> the hundred of call to it]).
> But if the pattern is really a basic one, even if it can be done with a
> macro, it may be worth to thing about having it built-in.
> That's why I did the triangular and square pattern patch: I feeled it was
> unfair to have only the hexagon pattern in 2D.

I can see your points here. Yes, there are probably times when a built-in is a good
idea.
It would be nice of course if there was access to syntax coloring options (other than
assigning colors to categories), though I realize this is not POV's purpose.

--
David Fontaine  <dav### [at] faricynet>  ICQ 55354965
My raytracing gallery:  http://davidf.faricy.net/

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