In article <3ec3b01a@news.povray.org>,
 "Will W" <wil### [at] NOSPAMwizzardsnet> wrote:

> Actually, the documentation of cross platform packages I've used generally
> cover this by saying that there is a limit, which is dependent on the
> platform or compiler settings, and advises that those who need to know where
> to go to find that other documentation.

Of course there's a limit, and anyone coding these types of scenes 
should already be aware of that. It's not anything special to POV-Ray.


> Actually, I prefer parsers that do not enforce arbitrary bounds. I've become
> pretty perlish in my coding practices in the last decade, and I now
> recognize my responsibility as the programmer is to know what the limits are
> and to break them only when necessary. The parser's responsibility goes no
> further than accurately translating what I write into executable code. If I
> want to do something "illegal", I don't want some stupid parser yapping that
> I can't do that.

Right...the parser shouldn't say anything if you do something wrong, it 
should just mysteriously fail. That's wonderful for user-friendliness.
(Yuck, Perl...)


> This conflicts with your statement that the boundaries are platform/compiler
> dependent, and not a part of POV itself.

No it doesn't. By looking at the source code, you can tell what 
platform-dependant constants are being used.


> > 4. It will not be changed in POV-Ray 3.x.
> 
> But will the documentation be changed in POV-Ray 4.x?  After this
> discussion, there is now the possibility. Before this discussion, there was
> not.

It most likely will, as 4.0 will be a different program. Using the 
documentation for previous versions often does not work very well.

-- 
Christopher James Huff <cja### [at] earthlinknet>
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
POV-Ray TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
http://tag.povray.org/

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