clipka wrote:

> I think the right way to go is take an established free open-source
> language (which should be bytecode-based, have a very simple core, and
> designed to be embedded into other software; my current champion for this
> would be Lua) and replace or heavily modify its parser to suit the
> specific needs of POV-Ray.
> 

While I do see your point, I think that Python has some features that might 
make this manageable.  For example:

from povray import *
MyTex = texture(pigment=(1,1,1))
sphere((0,0,0),5,texture=MyTex)

Even if this isn't the default interface, it would be nice to have the 
programming capabilities of Python to use in a POV-Ray scene.  I've thought 
about writing something similar myself, but it would be a lot of work.

Also, Python is pretty fast, and could implement custom features/shaders 
without recompiling POV:

class MyCam(camera):
	def makeRay(x,y):
		"""Define a ray from the camera from x,y pixels"""
		return ray(...)

def myfunc(x,y,z):
	"""We could use traditional Python functions for isosurfaces and similar"""
	return x+y+z

One of the things that has annoyed me about the existing SDL as of late is 
that not all blocks can be declared (patterns and others cannot be).

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