> Because of this, they have a
> syntax that is *very* easy to parse for a computer (as an example,
> the XML grammar fits in about 200 lines, whereas the C grammar takes
> over 400 lines (and that's *without* the preprocessor!)

No XML is better discussion (not sure if that is your argument or not),
please, those lead nowhere. XML being easy to parse is not an argument for
anybody who knows something about (programming) language theory - the
complexity of a grammar* isn't defined by the name of the language after all ;-)

	Thorsten

* See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context-free_grammar>,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LL_parser>,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LR_parser> and all related links.

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   I'm not sure I have any reason to, but what I fear is that once the
> developement of POV-Ray becomes completely open, if it so happens that
> nobody takes the role of strong leader ("dictator")

Looking for a dictator? -- Hmm, I guess I should rise my hand now and
volunteer... :-P

	Thorsten

Post a reply to this message

Tim Cook wrote:
> Looks like post-4.0 is the most realistic, though something that worries
> me is this: how long, if ever, will it take after gutting non-opensource
> code to regain similar level of functionality, and with a new SDL, will
> all prior POV data become obsolete and useless?

About two people working full-time on it for two to three months. That is
how Chris and i created the first 3.7 beta as well. The trouble is that not
working for two to three months isn't exactly possible these days for any
POV-Team member still around :-(

	Thorsten

Post a reply to this message

Thorsten Froehlich <tho### [at] trfde> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   I'm not sure I have any reason to, but what I fear is that once the
> > developement of POV-Ray becomes completely open, if it so happens that
> > nobody takes the role of strong leader ("dictator")

> Looking for a dictator? -- Hmm, I guess I should rise my hand now and
> volunteer... :-P

  That's only half of the problem. The other half is developers actually
accepting you as the strong leader and obeying your wishes. :P

  (In the industry this is easy: Either obey, or you get fired. The
paycheck is a good incentive. In the Open Source community this is
slightly more difficult to impose.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

>> Because of this, they have a
>> syntax that is *very* easy to parse for a computer (as an example,
>> the XML grammar fits in about 200 lines, whereas the C grammar takes
>> over 400 lines (and that's *without* the preprocessor!)
> 
> No XML is better discussion (not sure if that is your argument or not),
> please, those lead nowhere. XML being easy to parse is not an argument for
> anybody who knows something about (programming) language theory - the
> complexity of a grammar* isn't defined by the name of the language after all ;-)
> 
	I don't understand your answer so I can't really answer to it, but
I'll try to clarify my post:

 - I wasn't advocating XML (although there are situations where it
is useful). Especially not for a 3D scene description language;

 - Nemesis was complaining about the poor readability and
human-friendliness of languages like XML and RIB. I simply pointed
out that these languages were not intended by their creators to be
manipulated by hand. As such, human-friendliness came as a poor
second to other criteria, like the ease of implementation which is a
prerequisite to wide acceptance. Unfortunately, a lot of people have
started advocating and using XML for situations it wasn't designed
for and fits poorly;

 - You say: "the complexity of a grammar isn't defined by the name
of the language". I especially don't understand what you mean by
that? I was using the number of lines of the BNF grammar as a
measurement for the complexity of the language. This shows that C is
much more complex than XML, especially if you include the
C-preprocessor in your estimation.

		Jerome
- --
+------------------------- Jerome M. BERGER ---------------------+
|    mailto:jeb### [at] freefr      | ICQ:    238062172            |
|    http://jeberger.free.fr/     | Jabber: jeb### [at] jabberfr   |
+---------------------------------+------------------------------+
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)

iD4DBQFG5Bccd0kWM4JG3k8RAiTFAJj46Uf2pfqjZ4TL/M2zgGTIcqDBAKC0uECj
u9Nv9zlr0SP/4uOE48K/Dg==
=soL5
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Post a reply to this message

Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:
> We are as always interested in hearing from anyone with reasonable coding
> skills who can assist, not only with the future 4.0 work but also with
> finishing 3.7.
>
> regards,
>
> -- Chris
I did C++ coding in college, only about 4 years ago. I still remember most
of the concepts related to OOP i.e. pointers datatypes stacks ques
struct/typedef, althought my syntax may have gotten a bit rusty. I use
mostly VBA now for work. I don't know if this counts as reasonable, but if
it does, let me know what I can do to help.

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:

> 
>   I'm not sure I have any reason to, but what I fear is that once the
> developement of POV-Ray becomes completely open, if it so happens that
> nobody takes the role of strong leader ("dictator") or nobody is accepted
> as such, what will happen is that there will be too many cooks spoiling
> the broth and no general agreement is ever reached over which kind of
> scripting language should be adopted and implemented. Even if an attempt
> at designing such a language, the "too many cooks" will only stir the mud
> and without that strong leadership the entire thing can become a complete
> mess.
>   As I see it, the three most likely scenarios are:
> 

I wonder why you think this.

There is a sufficient large number of open source projects out there with
which it worked, and still works. OpenOffice and such come to mind.

-- 
Ger

Post a reply to this message

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Ger wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> 
>>   I'm not sure I have any reason to, but what I fear is that once the
>> developement of POV-Ray becomes completely open, if it so happens that
>> nobody takes the role of strong leader ("dictator") or nobody is accepted
>> as such, what will happen is that there will be too many cooks spoiling
>> the broth and no general agreement is ever reached over which kind of
>> scripting language should be adopted and implemented. Even if an attempt
>> at designing such a language, the "too many cooks" will only stir the mud
>> and without that strong leadership the entire thing can become a complete
>> mess.
>>   As I see it, the three most likely scenarios are:
>>
> 
> I wonder why you think this.
> 
> There is a sufficient large number of open source projects out there with
> which it worked, and still works. OpenOffice and such come to mind.
> 
	Probably because there is a sufficiently large number of open
source projects out there with which it didn't work, and precious
few with which it did.

	OpenOffice was first developed as proprietary software and is
currently maintained by Sun. I believe that there is a strong
leadership emanating from Sun to guide the project.

		Jerome
- --
+------------------------- Jerome M. BERGER ---------------------+
|    mailto:jeb### [at] freefr      | ICQ:    238062172            |
|    http://jeberger.free.fr/     | Jabber: jeb### [at] jabberfr   |
+---------------------------------+------------------------------+
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFG5DyDd0kWM4JG3k8RAuRBAJwN9fh3naf1tY0C9lJUyIumv5jfqgCgvE+T
PjKsbdyYl7bE7xWFx7M8F3w=
=zPGo
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Post a reply to this message

I nominate Warp for benevolent dictator for life. ;-)

In all seriousness, I'm very excited about all this, and hope that I'll 
have a chance to contribute code.

Re the idea of a demo implementation of SDL: If the main thing we can't 
implement currently is post-processing, we could hack a program that 
writes "classic" SDL, executes POV, and then runs some post-processing 
on the output (ImageMagick comes to mind as a possible starting point).

I assume that there's other problems with this approach besides 
postprocessing, though.

-- 
William Tracy
afi### [at] gmailcom wtr### [at] calpolyedu

You know you've been raytracing too long when you can't help thinking 
that if the World was created in six days then it must have been with 
anti-aliasing off and only point light sources used.
Richard Morton

Post a reply to this message

>> 
>> I wonder why you think this.
>> 
>> There is a sufficient large number of open source projects out there with
>> which it worked, and still works. OpenOffice and such come to mind.
>> 
> Probably because there is a sufficiently large number of open
> source projects out there with which it didn't work, and precious
> few with which it did.
> 
> OpenOffice was first developed as proprietary software and is
> currently maintained by Sun. I believe that there is a strong
> leadership emanating from Sun to guide the project.
> 

Agreed, but still.......
Just have a look around, Lazarus, Amarok, KOffice, even KDE, Gnome and Linux
itself are joint efforts. And because they are works in progress people
will come and go.
If the group of designers, developers, coders and testers is willing to work
on it then an open source version of Povray will work. It's just one of
those things that one has to be willing to do, not because one is paid to
do it.
If after a while only Thorsten and Chris are the only ones left working on
it then obviously Povray didn't have what it needs to be an open source
project, but saying from the getgo that it can't work sounds a bit defiant
to me.
-- 
Ger

Post a reply to this message