"clipka" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> "Ciper" <cey### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> > PovOL (Pov-Ray Object Language) is a toy language that provides access to the
> > ray tracing facilities of the Pov-Ray engine via simple definitions of Pov-Ray
> > objects. It is NOT an object-oriented language. It is developed using
> > Microsoft's Oslo's MGrammar and generates code to SDL. It is by no means a
> > replacement for SDL (far from it!) but is meant to give practical access to new
> > users to Pov-Ray's powerful capabilities.
>
> Ah - okay - so, what are its benefits over the current SDL?
>
> The first things I notice is that it does not have the {} bracing, but replaces
> them with either "end" or ";", probably making the language more difficult to
> learn (when do I use ";", when do I use "end"?).
>
> Second thing I notice is that it eliminates keywords like "pigment" when a
> variable is used, making it faster to type, but easier to mess up if variable
> names happen to be rather cryptic (you don't get a warning that the variable
> doesn't contin what you thought it did).
>
> Thirdly I notice the introduction of what seems to be a new primitive, "axis".
> Nice, but not particularly a language feature.
>
> Then, I notice that there's no documentation yet whatsoever, which makes it hard
> to try out anything serious.
>
> (And ultimately, I notice that the use of the copyright sign in conjunction with
> the text "Persistence of Vision" is rather inappropriate in this context,
> legally speaking.)
>
>
> All in all, I don't see how this new language would improve access to POV-Ray to
> new users; to me it seems inferior syntactically, and aside from that I expect
> it to be more limited than SDL, so that users of the language striving for more
> would have to switch over to SDL anyway, which then would require them to
> re-learn.

You are absolutely right in all respects.

No, there is no current benefit over SDL.

It is just a quick & dirty way of intersecting 2 cones (or some such).

Still... I use it.

Nobody can replace SDL! All I do is just generate a very small subset of SDL
for very primitive scenes.

I can cease & desist from generating SDL if that's your wish.

Regards,
Ciper

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