It may be that something like this was already planned, or though about and
shot down, but here goes...

Imagine:

A set of standard include files, published under POV-licence (or GPL, or
other), hosted on the povray.org -- with version control, etc.

Someone writes a brilliant include-file or macro, and offers it to the
Team... and eventually it gets added to the collection.

Benefits:

- Official macro/include-based enhancements to POV outside the actual
  development cycle.

- Less hunting of vanished web-pages and their gems.

- More synergy benefits (buzzword!).

- No more wondering what the hell does GH_obs_Make_SO( 13, <3,4,5>,
seed(3) )
  do... (At least not for all the people: once you figure it out, you post
  the documented version to the repository maintainer(s).)

Also, it might not also be such a bad idea to open a similar repository for
other POV-utilities. The author gets the recognition, and we get the source
to play with...

Good? Bad? Stupid? Too much work? Against established philosophy?

 -- Nikodemus

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>
> Good? Bad? Stupid? Too much work? Against established philosophy?
>
>  -- Nikodemus
I think its a good Idea. I had to search very long in the internet to
find all the macros and includes that I have now on my disc.

Post a reply to this message

POV-Ray 3.5 contains lots of standard include files which are well
documented, which is a great improvement compared to previous versions.

  But of course it would be a good idea to have a "third party includes"
official page at povray.org for the reasons you mention.
  Something like this has already beem discussed among the team and the TAG
(eg. with texture collections), but POV-Ray 3.5 has been the main issue for
quite long time, so these type of side projects have been get a bit buried.
  Perhaps when the final 3.5 is ready...

-- 
#macro N(D,I)#if(I<6)cylinder{M()#local D[I]=div(D[I],104);M().5,2pigment{
rgb M()}}N(D,(D[I]>99?I:I+1))#end#end#macro M()<mod(D[I],13)-6,mod(div(D[I
],13),8)-3,10>#end blob{N(array[6]{11117333955,
7382340,3358,3900569407,970,4254934330},0)}//                     - Warp -

Post a reply to this message

"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:

>   POV-Ray 3.5 contains lots of standard include files which are well
> documented, which is a great improvement compared to previous versions.

True ;) But could the standard include files should be distributed
separately? This way the standard library could (maybe) be evolve more
rapidly, instead of being updated per release...

 -- Nikodemus

Post a reply to this message

You might want to talk to Ken about inclusion of a set of links that are
specific to include files.  Also, why don't you start compiling and
organizing a set of include files and keep them on your web site for
everyone to access?

Jim

"Nikodemus Siivola" <tsi### [at] cchutfi> wrote in message
news:3ba4d8a9@news.povray.org...
>
> "Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>
> >   POV-Ray 3.5 contains lots of standard include files which are well
> > documented, which is a great improvement compared to previous versions.
>
> True ;) But could the standard include files should be distributed
> separately? This way the standard library could (maybe) be evolve more
> rapidly, instead of being updated per release...
>
>  -- Nikodemus
>
>
>

Post a reply to this message

"Jim Kress" <kre### [at] kressworkscom> wrote:

> You might want to talk to Ken about inclusion of a set of links that are
> specific to include files.  Also, why don't you start compiling and
> organizing a set of include files and keep them on your web site for
> everyone to access?

I could, but the point is that

a) I am an individual person, and my website might vanish like so many
others...

b) It would be nice to have a set of include-files with the team's stamp
of approval on them, published under a single licence or at most two.

One benefit I have not yet mentioned: Names. A standard include library
would prevent name collisions, or at least help avoid them.

 - Nikodemus

Post a reply to this message

In article <3ba4bff8@news.povray.org> , "Nikodemus Siivola" 
<tsi### [at] cchutfi> wrote:

> A set of standard include files, published under POV-licence (or GPL, or
> other), hosted on the povray.org -- with version control, etc.

A really good idea the POV-Team has been playing with for years.
Unfortunately, even creating simple database driven websites takes a real
lot of time and testing.  Just the newsgroup interface took well over 200
hours of work, and it has no "critical" user interaction yet (which is one
of the _many_ (other) reasons why there isn't something as "complex" as
posting available).

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich
e-mail: mac### [at] povrayorg

I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

Post a reply to this message

Nikodemus Siivola <tsi### [at] cchutfi> wrote:
: True ;) But could the standard include files should be distributed
: separately? This way the standard library could (maybe) be evolve more
: rapidly, instead of being updated per release...

  Because it would be more complicated for the users.
  They would have to know there are a set of standard include files somewhere
else, they have to find them, they have to download them and they have to
know how to install them. Also the documentation would have to be separate
from the povray main documentation, which causes even more problems (it's not
a good idea to include in the main povray documentation something which doesn't
come with povray).

  And besides, a continuously updated set of include files can be a good
thing, but it can also be a bad thing: If some include files are changed,
then lots of existing pov files can become incompatible with them. That is
there will be a lot of versioning problems. There may be pov-files which
work with the library version 3.5a5, but not with versions 3.5a4 nor 3.5a6.
This can be a headache.

-- 
#macro N(D,I)#if(I<6)cylinder{M()#local D[I]=div(D[I],104);M().5,2pigment{
rgb M()}}N(D,(D[I]>99?I:I+1))#end#end#macro M()<mod(D[I],13)-6,mod(div(D[I
],13),8)-3,10>#end blob{N(array[6]{11117333955,
7382340,3358,3900569407,970,4254934330},0)}//                     - Warp -

Post a reply to this message

> It may be that something like this was already planned, or though about
and
> shot down, but here goes...

a similar idea is on the cards for povray.co.uk, however its another idea
that would require significant development time, and I have none free atm :(


--
Rick

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POV-Ray News & Resources - http://Povray.co.uk
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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:

> : True ;) But could the standard include files should be distributed
> : separately? This way the standard library could (maybe) be evolve more
> : rapidly, instead of being updated per release...
>
>   Because it would be more complicated for the users.
>   They would have to know there are a set of standard include files
>   somewhere else, they have to find them, they have to download them and

Ok. I buy this. So what we want is a CPAN-like pov-archive, prefrably one
with official status, hosted on povray.org, under a single licence?

 - Nikodemus

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