"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] gmailcom> wrote:

> That's EXACTLY my problem as well. Except that I usually cannot figure out what
> a particular feature means, and simpy move on in frustration-- never making an
> attempt to use it, and not learning anything.

Well, thankfully we have the interwebs, and a lot of other graphics platforms
that go about things in slightly different ways, which can help provide a few
more approaches to compare, and there are literally whole courses and textbooks
to be had just for the searching...

> There are indeed many features that could be MUCH-better explained, with more
> 'humanly-readable' descriptions. I like *clarity*. If I had my way, something
> like the Point_At_Trans macro would instead be
>
> #macro This_Points_Your_Vector_Direction_In_Another_Direction_But_Watch_Out_For
> Problems_So_Add_The_Bald_Eagle_Solution(...)"
>
> :-P

So, with regard to that, I was thinking that maybe a neat idea would be to go
through ALL of the keywords and major macros and functions and make a single
giant file with nothing but illustrative code examples.

I made an in-depth stab at tackling the Bezier splines and patches - but that
ate up what - a month or two? (I learned a lot though).


> I think the present state of POV-ray-- the difficulty of understanding how to
> use certain features-- is partly a result of years /decades of a certain 'elite
> attitude' among some users, and a few developers as well (Clipka being the major
> exception IMO), that the program is meant for a particular intellectually
> superior audience-- and that those of us who aspire to learn it should not be
> 'spoon fed' with helpful comments if we are perceived to be below a certain
> level of ability. It went something like this: "Why don't you understand what
> you're asking? Read the f**king manual. If you don't understand it, you don't
> belong here, so get out." I exaggerate, but only a little. I think we have all
> seen this kind of response-- an attitude that has certainly not helped to expand
> POV-ray's user base! Personally, I've had to develop a thick skin over the
> years, to put up with that kind of unhelpful garbage; luckily, I persevered. But
> I amagine that others have simply given up and moved elsewhere. Of course, we
> would not be using the program at all if we didn't have a desire to learn
> programming in some way, and to 'build things from the ground up'; so it does
> take *some* level of knowledge and interest to grasp the essentials.  But the
> unhelpful attitudes have made it much harder than it should have been. And IMO,
> there are many parts of the documentation that reflect this unnecessary
> 'anti-spoon-feeding' attitude. Perhaps POV-ray *was* initially developed only
> for astute computer programmers, all those years ago; but those times have
> changed. Now even kids are learning to program!

Yeah - there are those elitist types everywhere.   "This is for me, but not for
thee."  And they hate me, because I have a very "F U, I won't do what you tell
me" attitude, and learn how to do everything that they can, and then some.  And
find out all of the ways that they are wrong, and discover ways to do it better
than they ever could.

I get a very distinct sense of what you're talking about over on
StackExchange/StackOverflow, where people are unnecessarily condescending, and
you can't even post questions or replies unless you have a certain reputation...
Linux seems to have a bit of that as well.   "Well, you're using linux, so you
should ALREADY know how to...."  Yeah, lemme just pull that regular expression
out of my nether region and plug it into awk, pipe it through grep, and then....

POV-Ray is nice, because it has a lot of "pre-packaged" things that help you get
up and running quickly even though there is still a big learning curve if you
want to start doing anything reasonably advanced.
ShaderToy is helpful for me because it strips away the entire safety net, and
requires me to understand what something like a camera is in code and math ...
there is no camera {} statement.  There is no pigment {granite}.  If you want
granite you have to code the damned thing from scratch.

Which I could never do a few years ago, but TOK, Bill P., and other people have
shown me what is possible, and given me a few nudges here and there to help me
on my way.  Perusing POV-Ray's source code was pretty eye opening too.  Because
those pigment patterns weren't magic black-boxes anymore, they were really,
ultra simple one-line equations that (in hindsight) made perfect sense.  So then
once I saw how it was done, I could replicate the simple examples, and start to
play with new functions, daisy-chaining equations, and basically getting into
the deep end of the pool   ;)

For a new-user, ignorance and some naive notions are to be expected.  It's super
easy to help out with a few lines of code, or just plopping a whole ready-made
scene on them to show them how it's done.

On the flip side, there are people who never want to do anything themselves and
only take. But generally this is a politics-free forum.  ;)

As long as people are willing to TRY, that's fine with me.   And probably more
often than not, I've learned more and answered some of my own questions in the
process of trying to answer a question or prove to someone that "it can't be
done!" just isn't true.   There's a way.  It may take me 3 years to find it.
But by golly, I'll resort to the most heinous and hacktastic coding practices to
prove that "IT CAN BE DONE!!!"

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