> It has been a long time since I've made so fundamental(!) and exciting a
> discovery as this. Those who already know what source code is may not truly
> understand my elation. I feel like I've suddenly climbed to the top of a very
> tall mountain--and can finally see the wondrous and vast mountain range
> stretching before me, just waiting to be discovered.
>
> The POV-Ray newsgroups are great!
>
> The root of my *long-term* basic misconception (of not realizing that source
> code is a simple text file, AND WRITTEN in a text editor) is this: I thought it
> needed to be written in some kind of special 'source-code' program or
> environment--and linked in some way with C/C++ code libraries or some such, to
> make even the writing process work. Admittedly a funny/goofy concept, now that I
> understand what the truth is. (I'm leaving out the compiling or interpreting
> process, that's a different thing.)

There *are* tools that work this way.  They are often called RAD (Rapid 
Application Design) tools and will allow you to drag and drop Windows, 
buttons and list boxes, and auto-generate code in the background.  By 
right-clicking on each of those, you can modify some or all of the 
underlying code.  This is usually used to create front-end apps for 
entreprise databases, but the underlying code will tend to be a jumbled 
mess.

Kind of like using Moray or Blender to generate POV-Ray SDL.



-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message