<sigh>

I just fail to understand why you don't use the 'K' key in your setup
(assuming thunderbird is the same on the Mac as it is on other platforms,
'K' is the "ignore thread" option).  You find the entire discussion
pointless and useless, so why *do* you bother reading it?  All your
comments do is distract from the actual discussion, which while you may
think is pointless, there are some people who are actually interested in
the ideas.  Maybe they won't ever be implemented in POV-Ray - but what
does that really matter?  The nature of research is that many ideas are
looked at - many of them are looked at multiple times - and sometimes you
get a gem.  Most of the time you don't, but every once in a while, it does.

Quashing discussion just because you don't see the value, or because you
believe there is no value does nothing to encourage people to think and
consider that they might actually have something to contribute of value. 
You want people to contribute things that are of value, right?  Well, if I
read this discussion and think "Man, there's no way that I might
contribute something that ______ would consider valuable, so why should
I even suggest my idea", and then the idea is lost.  And who knows, maybe
it would be an idea on how to optimize the raytracing algorithms, or to
modify the radiosity routines in a way that perhaps would cut render times
in half?

I find a couple of things perhaps somewhat amusing here:

1.  You don't seem to be able to ignore threads you see no value in, and

2.  You seem to just want to argue for the sake of arguing.

*I* understand what you're saying - not that you said anything to help me
understand what you were saying, mind - but that doesn't mean (a) that
those who think there is value in discussing it should not be allowed to
do so, and (b) that you certainly have no obligation to contribute to
those discussions.

In fact, I found it somewhat amusing that in this thread you've gone on
and on about the lack of portability, yet in another recent thread about
launching POV-Ray in a cross-platform environment, you indicated that
cross-platform support wasn't important to you personally.  In my own
mind, I have to wonder "which is it?  Is x-plat important to this guy or
not?".  The only conclusion I can come to is that you, like many others I
know in this field who have a high opinion of themselves (and in many
cases, *rightly so*) just like to disagree with everyone for the sake of
disagreeing.

As I've said *repeatedly*, I have nothing but respect for the members of
the POV-Ray team; I've personally known past members of the team and had
some very interesting discussions where I learned a lot - and I have to
say that I learned a lot not because Dan Farmer said to me "You're an
idiot and don't know what you're talking about" but took the time to
explain something to me that I didn't understand, even though it was
probably the 300th time he had explained it to someone.  And yes, those
discussions were had a bit before you got your driver's license.

That's the nature of online support, my friend.  I've been doing online
support for nearly 15 years now, and the nature of it is that you *will*
have the same discussions over and over and over again, ad nauseum.  That
is virtually *guaranteed*, and there is absolutely *nothing* you can do
about it.  Yelling at people doesn't work.  Just let them bash it out in
their own time - sometimes, people have to learn things for themselves,
they have to make the mistakes that have already been made to have an
epiphany.  Many people learn by *doing*, not by being told.  So let 'em.

Who knows, maybe the 15th time, someone will have an idea that nobody on
the POV-Ray team has thought of.  I'm sure you'll be skeptical of that
statement/idea, though.  You only want discussions that - how did you put
it - "Contribute something of value".  But of course nobody but you knows
what you consider valuable, so the only way to find it is to be subjected
to your anger and frustration.  Quite frankly, that's a great way to drive
users away from the POV-Ray project (again, BTDTGTTS).

As a long-time user of the software, I really appreciate the work that the
team has done to turn out a piece of software that truly is world-class. 
It's a shame that there are those who would rather not have open
discussion about things relating to the software, regardless of the value
they perceive in the discussions.  I would think that the POV-Ray team
would see that there is value in the process, regardless of the value the
team perceives to the outcome (or the projected outcome).

Jim

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