On Sun, 02 Jan 2005 17:17:30 +0100, Bernd Fuhrmann <Sil### [at] gmxde>
wrote:
> >   What is, in your opinion, a "full featured programming language"?
> >   The SDL is turing-complete.
>
> There are a lot of features missing that are used in a lot 
> of modern programming languages.

I have to admit that term "modern" in case of programming makes me think about
all those annoying features of VisualC which makes programming harder. I like
plain simple programming when you think about algorithm rather than "cool"
features of the "language".

> Examples:
> * Structs/Classes

You can mimic structs array of arrays.

> * References, esp. to functions

AFAIK POV-Ray does use references where it benefits in optimizations. Is there
a place in current SDL when POV-Ray does copying of the object rather than
referencing it, you can for sure fix it without introducing XML.

> Other possibly cool features
> * Inheritance
> * Java-like classes inside classes
> * C++ like multiple inheritance
> * Lambda expressions (Scheme)

Obviously POV-Ray SDL is not perfect tool but also obviously it is a lot of
power already and I very often choose it as simple scripting tool for series
of simple operations. For example in samples there is a portfolio which easily
outputs html files with all images rendered. But adding "cool" programming
features just because they are "cool" is questionable. In spite of all POV-Ray
is a renderer so let's concentrate on rendering features: types of objects,
cameras, lights, build-in patterns, antialiasing, HDRI, splines, visual
effects, radiosity etc, etc. There is so much to do around such features that
making programming "cool" if you probably have already your favourite
programming language which you can easily adopt to preparing SDL file is
wasting of man power (IMO).

ABX

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