Warp wrote:

>   ... very limited and very slow.
> 
>   Also, from core developement point of view, it's quite horrible.
> For example, why do you think there's no eval() function in POV-Ray?
> That is, a function which takes a string and evaluates this string
> as if it was SDL (similar to how an #include "file" would do, but
> with a string instead)?
>   Answer: Because the parser is a mess, full of kludges, burdened with
> backwards-compatibility. For example, #macros are handy and powerful...
> too powerful for their own good. #macros are one of the major reasons
> why there's no eval() function in POV-Ray.
> 
>   Adding new features to the parser is a real pain sometimes (I have
> recent personal experience), mainly due to how the SDL works and is
> parsed. For example, being able to insert a #declare almost anywhere
> may feel handy, but is a nightmare to parse properly.
>   One thing I recently tried to achieve was string concatenation using
> the + operator (as an alternative to the concat function). In the end
> it seems that this would be really, really difficult to implement in
> the current parser due to how interpreting # commands (which can appear
> almost everywhere) works.
> 


Warp, this sort of input helps us all understand the issues better. 
Thanks for this insight.

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