>> Shay:
>> All of this would add piles of pages to the documentation
>> (a bad thing), 

> Warp:
 > A bad thing why? You don't have to read those parts of
> the documentation if you don't want to.

Because it will make it more difficult for an average user to find tools 
which may be of critical use to him. There are many great features of 
POV-Ray which a person would never know to look for - luckily the entire 
index of the POV-Ray documentation is still small enough to browse, so 
these features are not "lost."

> Warp:
> You don't have to use  the extra features if you don't want
> to. But why would you want  to remove the extra features from
> people who could create awesome  things with them?

I do want extra features. I don't want to clutter up the SDL with 
shortcuts. I don't want POV-Ray to become the Emacs of renderers. I do 
believe in adding what is absolutely needed for bi-directionality. I 
don't believe that the ability to make pretty subdivision macros or text 
converters in SDL is worth the cost.

"Yes!" to all that is necessary; "No!" to all that is merely convenient.

> Warp:
> Imagine you could write this scene in POV-Ray:
> 
> #include "import3ds.inc"
> import3ds("myscene.3ds");
> 
> And that's it. Nothing more. And the scene renderes beautifully.
> 
> But no, you don't want this. <snip>  When some newbie asks "can I
> convert a 3DS file to povray" you will answer the old same "try
> this converter software which does a half-assed job and might work
> or not".

And by what magic will a converter written in SDL be less half-assed?

> Warp:
 > How would you generate a shader which accesses a data container
> with an external programming language if povray does not support
> that?

from the post to which you are replying:
"Any addition to the procedural part of POV SDL must either be necessary 
to create a scene, ..."

I am not advocating not expanding the language.

> Warp:
> Why keep it needlessly simple<snip>?

If you're going to make a program capable of producing print-quality 
work, then you'll want as many people as possible using the program for 
that purpose. I'm sure you'll agree that there is a point of diminishing 
return...

> Warp:
> What if you wanted to write a shader which, for example, spawns
> additional rays?

...The question is whether such ability lies before or after that point.

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