>> You're missing the point.  It's not because you or I can't think of a 
>> reason, no one can. Your idea takes functionality away, just because you 
>> believe there's no reason for that functionality to exist. (Or better: 
>> your idea makes it a lot harder to do the same thing).
>
> No, I think it's you who is missing the point:
>
> * As long as there's no reason to use both at the same time, the 
> functionality /is/ redundant.

the functionality is there, I see no reason whatsoever to remove it.

> I notice that you do give a scene that uses both at the same time - but 
> you fail to name a reason why it does so.

try to remove one or the other, the result is completely different. The 
reason to use both phong and specular in my scene is so I can have soft and 
hard specular hilights in the same material without needlessly complicated 
code

> * In case there are /exceptional/ reasons to use both at the same time, if 
> there's a reasonably simple way around it the functionality can still be 
> considered redundant.

I would agree if you were argueing against *adding* functionality, but we're 
talking about taking functionality *away*. And in that case I believe that 
if even one person can think of a reason, even if only he/she understands 
that reason, to use a particular function, and if changing the program to 
remove that functionality doesn't give us anything else, anything better, in 
return, then we're dealing with an "it ain't broke so don't fix it" 
situation.

> I notice that the scene you give can be fairly easy done using layered 
> textures (see below).
> I also note that your scene appears not to be relying particularly on the 
> ability to use both phong and specular simultaneously, but on the general 
> ability to overlay multiple highlights of different spread; if you would 
> want to carry this further to mix 3 instead of 2 such highlights, then 
> you'd be screwed anyway.

true, but like I said in my post: it's not because you or I can't think of a 
reason, that no one else can.  I made that scene just quickly as a 
demonstration that combining hilights could be usefull, I know perfectly 
well the same effect can be be done in another way, but that was not the 
point.  I didn't want to spend time trying to find a situation where it 
couldn't reasonably be done in any other way.

> * For scenes that do use both features in the same texture - for whatever 
> reason - there would be a transitory time (well, transitory versions 
> actually) that would still support the old syntax, including the ability 
> to use both types of highlights at the same time.
>
> * Removing redundant functionality has been done before in POV-Ray (e.g. 
> Halo, which was superseded by media even though that probably made it more 
> complicated to achieve the simpler use cases covered by halo).

yes, but AFAIK every effect halo could produce, can also be done with media. 
The opposite is not true.  So it's not a matter of taking functionality away 
without adding anything better.  Your proposal is.

I'm not saying your idea isn't good, I'm saying you have to give us more, 
not less, functionality.  I too believe it's redundant to have two 
hilight-types (and to be completely honest, I've never really understood the 
benefits of phong, I've always found specular to look far better) but 
they're there, people might want to combine them, so why not just let them.

I think your idea is more something for POV-Ray 4, although I hope we get a 
full shader language there :) with full layering possibilities (why, btw, 
isn't layering of patterned textures allowed in POV3.6?) including 
texture-'blend modes' (like the ones image editing programs have, I'd love 
to be able to make textures that shift the hue of underlying colors, or 
textures that additively blends with the background).
hmm, this is getting OT :)

cu!
-- 
#macro G(b,e)b+(e-b)*C/50#end#macro _(b,e,k,l)#local C=0;#while(C<50)
sphere{G(b,e)+3*z.1pigment{rgb G(k,l)}finish{ambient 1}}#local C=C+1;
#end#end _(y-x,y,x,x+y)_(y,-x-y,x+y,y)_(-x-y,-y,y,y+z)_(-y,y,y+z,x+y)
_(0x+y.5+y/2x)_(0x-y.5+y/2x)            // ZK http://www.povplace.com

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