my 2 cents:

We should not forget povray is heavily used by non-programmers and adding
more stuff -- like more syntax items or heavy-handed standards -- may put
some of these people down...

The main problem is naming collisions.  This problem may not even require
adding more syntax, but just handle the #include more gracefully -- perhaps
as a rewrite rule indeed.

Today, when I #include a file, its declarations may conflict with previous
ones.  When such a thing happens, povray should *warn* the user and suggest
using an alias for the included file and access its contents via the alias.

i.e., supposing both includes declare a make_bike:

#include "nem_bike.inc" #as nem // bike by nemesis
#include "jvs_bike.inc" #as jvs // bike by John VanSickle

object { nem_make_bike() translate -x*5*m }
object { jvs_make_bike() translate x*3*m }

If #as isn't used, it behaves just like regular #include... of course,
include files in the include files repository could be preprocessed like
that to make the uniquely prefixed by the author's login initials...

Post a reply to this message