Chris Huff <chr### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
: But I am sure some people would consider it a needless complexity...

  You are right. And I wonder why?
  If someone adds some new object, pattern or other feature, everyone praises
it and says "oohh... cool... great!". If someone even suggests adding something
to the syntax, everyone is immediately saying "no, no, no!".

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

Post a reply to this message

Nieminen Juha wrote:
> 
> Chris Huff <chr### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> : But I am sure some people would consider it a needless complexity...
> 
>   You are right. And I wonder why?
>   If someone adds some new object, pattern or other feature, everyone praises
> it and says "oohh... cool... great!". If someone even suggests adding something
> to the syntax, everyone is immediately saying "no, no, no!".

Like I said elsewhere you have a clear conflict between the Programmer
mentality and the User mentality. Programmers not only want to know how
it works but they also want to be able to force it to work as they want
it to.
  Users just want to be able to use it and don't care how it works. Users
want features that are easy to apply and the program takes care of the
details. Users want a big list of features to choose from without having
to do a big song and dance routine to get it to work.

Programming features are big song and dance routines !

That's how I see it anyway.

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1300+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

Post a reply to this message

Nieminen Juha wrote:
> 
>  Now, that's an idea:
> 
> #function Abs(x)
>   #if(x>=0)
>     #return x
>   #else
>     #return -x
>   #end
> #end
> 
>   Hmm... Does this make sense? :)
> 

I like the idea of functions, but I suspect there would be a lot of
resistance to their introduction.
Why? they look rather like macros and people will get confused.  I'm not
saying people are dumb but a lot of POV users are not programmers and
might not appreciate the difference between macros and functions.

PoD.

Post a reply to this message

Sorry, I'm a coder. I can't do anything about it... ;)

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

Post a reply to this message

Ken wrote:
> 
> Gilles Tran wrote:
> 
> 
> Good point(s). What I also fear is that if the programming language
> is extended in POV-Ray to include OO programming, for () loops, and
> all of the other programming suggestions that have been addressed
> in this thread, is what is going to happen when some non programming
> literate POV-User comes to the news groups seeking help and some
> programmer type gives them an example in the form of these new
> features ? 

How many times have you seen someone ask 
"I have nested #while loops and the inner one doesn't work" ?
This is a problem that would go away with for() loops.

I fully agree that programming features are just a part of POV-Ray, but
who doesn't appreciate the efforts of people like Chris Colefax.  How
much more productive would such #include writers be with better tools?

I also don't think anyone is advocating that the POV-team drop
development of the render engine in favour of the programming interface,
we all want faster, more realistic  renders with more features ;^)

Cheers, PoD.

Post a reply to this message

Spend a minute thinking about the requirements for a POV-Ray L-system
(but make sure you're sitting down first)

PoD.

Post a reply to this message

PoD wrote:
> 
> Spend a minute thinking about the requirements for a POV-Ray L-system
> (but make sure you're sitting down first)
> 
> PoD.

Oops,
That should have been requirements for the syntax of POV-Ray L-system.

PoD.

Post a reply to this message

In article <38CBF353.539F926F@merlin.net.au>, PoD <pod### [at] merlinnetau> 
wrote:

> Spend a minute thinking about the requirements for a POV-Ray L-system
> (but make sure you're sitting down first)

What about them?
I think it would be hard to understand unless you have experience with 
L-System scripts, but the POV syntax would be pretty simple. And a 
couple predefined objects and some macros for controlling l_system 
objects should probably be included...

Writing the actual l_system object would be much more difficult than 
deciding on a syntax.

-- 
Chris Huff
e-mail: chr### [at] yahoocom
Web page: http://chrishuff.dhs.org/

Post a reply to this message

Chris Huff wrote:
> 
> In article <38CBF353.539F926F@merlin.net.au>, PoD <pod### [at] merlinnetau>
> wrote:
> 
> > Spend a minute thinking about the requirements for a POV-Ray L-system
> > (but make sure you're sitting down first)
> 
> What about them?
> I think it would be hard to understand unless you have experience with
> L-System scripts, but the POV syntax would be pretty simple. And a
> couple predefined objects and some macros for controlling l_system
> objects should probably be included...
> 
> Writing the actual l_system object would be much more difficult than
> deciding on a syntax.
> 

Show me a simple syntax that lets you create a tree with different
textures for trunk, branches, twigs, leaves, fruit, flowers.
And has declarations of objects to use for the above.

I think that if the syntax was invented, then implementing it would be
simple.

PoD.

Post a reply to this message

Tor Olav Kristensen wrote:

> People can press whatever keys they like.
>
> So if you preferred not to hit that function key, then the computer
> wouldn't modify your work...

Okay, but what about 1, 2 and 3a? :-p

--
___     _______________________________________________
 | \     |_          <dav### [at] faricynet> <ICQ 55354965>
 |_/avid |ontaine        http://www.faricy.net/~davidf/

"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." -Dali

Post a reply to this message