"Daniel Hulme" <pho### [at] isticorg> wrote...
> Someone has just asked me why the POV-Ray parser is written the way it
> is rather than using a standard lexer-/parser-generator. I was unable to
> give a useful answer. OOC, does anyone know, or is it just one of those
> things that made sense at the time for reasons lost in the mists of
> eternity?

There are a few reasons I can imagine:
1) Age of the code (probably the primary reason, as parser generators might
not have been as popular when DKB Trace was originally created)
2) Simplicity of the original scene description language (SDL) (i.e. no
loops, conditions, or variables)
3) Very close connection between SDL and renderer
4) Many small, compounding changes over time, favoring backwards
compatibility
5) It works; nobody's found a compelling reason to rewrite it

-Nathan

Post a reply to this message