"David H. Burns" <dhb### [at] cherokeetelnet> wrote:
> You will pardon me if I resent being forced into something even if it is
> "for my own good".
> Those with power, especially those with illegitimate power are always
> forcing someone to do
> something "for their own good". So you would take control of a useful
> tool and twist it into
> an instrument to force us "retards" into accepting your philosophy!

First off, sorry for the choice of words; "OOP-retards" was intended to be more
sort of affectionate than anything else, but admittedly ill-suited for this
purpose. I do apologize.

That said, I'm not sure whom you are referring to here with "those with power"
in general, and "those with illegitimate power" in particular. Furthermore, I
have no intention to "take control of a useful tool and twist it into an
instrument to force" anyone into accepting my "philosophy", neither personally
nor otherwise.

Hear yourself talking - as if there was a sinister conspiracy to enforce OOP
onto people, involving some kind of abominable inhumane brainwashing - and as
if I personally was one of the key figures in this plot.

Yes, I personally do advocate going for strong OOP-support with POV-Ray 4 SDL. I
do so as a POV-Ray user, and I do so as a contributing developer.

Yes, I did present a serious proposal for a new, OOP-enabled SDL in the povray 4
newsgroup some months ago.

Yes, being active in the development of POV-Ray 3.7 I *may* happen to personally
get my hands dirty on the code of POV-Ray 4's SDL engine.

However, this is all still far from being decided; and all I was saying here and
now is, *if* the POV-Ray 4 language does go OOP, (1) I guess it will not be as
dramatically incomprehensible to non-OOP people as you seem to expect, (2) I
guess it will be of benefit for, and readily embraced by, the vast majority of
the users, (3) I guess for people who have no OOP experience but the desire to
learn the concepts it will provide a good opportunity to get into it in an easy
fashion, and (4) as for people categorically resenting any OOP exposure,
personally I'd accept the price of them turning their back on POV-Ray, as sad
as that loss would be.


And I'm also saying, try OOP for yourself, *then* judge. Give the concept a
chance before boldly declaring that it is of the devil.

Turning your own argument around, why should a small, radically anti-OOP group
of people (I currently know of exactly *one*), who don't seem to know from own
experience what they're really talking about, impose their categorically
anti-OOP philosophy unto a significantly greater number of users who would
readily embrace OOP out of good experience or an open mindset (I know for sure
of at least a handful to be decidedly pro-OOP, and would expect a poll to turn
up many, many more), forcing them to use a language particularly ill-suited for
their favorite way of programming?

You see, that argument of yours works great both ways round; and at the bottom
line, I'm more than willing to make myself a spokesman of (a) the majority, (b)
people whose arguments are based on personal experience, (c) those with the less
radical mindset, and (d) the solution that would allow both sides to code the
way they personally prefer. *All* these vectors currently seem to point towards
adding OOP-support to the SDL, with only the resentments of what currently
appears to be a radical and very small minority pointing in the opposite
direction.


> You have already branded me off topic. So let's leave it at that.

Sorry if I didn't make it clear enough that was a pure pun.

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