Peter Hokanson <pch### [at] riceedu> wrote:
> This may seem a little odd, but why not use Python as an SDL?
> ...
> If not Python, then perhaps some other established language should be
> considered.

This has already been discussed quite a lot and quite often.

I am by now convinced that with *all* well-established languages, such an
approach would invariably lead to an SDL that may be quite fitting for
programming complex stuff, but cumbersome for the most essential tasks the SDL
will have to be used for: Describing the actual scene elements to instantiate.

I think the right way to go is take an established free open-source language
(which should be bytecode-based, have a very simple core, and designed to be
embedded into other software; my current champion for this would be Lua) and
replace or heavily modify its parser to suit the specific needs of POV-Ray.

If there's one thing a new SDL *must not* do, then it's making plain-vanilla
scene description significantly more cumbersome than with the current SDL.

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