As many others Like Warp and Clipka have mentioned, people that are scared away
by SDLs often prefer graphical modellers. Very complicated SDLs that look like
C/C++, Python, Java, etc. and also be scary. At the same time very basic SDLs
are somewhat limiting in features.

My fear is that POVRay v4 SDL becomes too basic people will opt for an
alternative like Blender, whereas if it becomes too advanced they will opt for
something more like OpenGL (even though it is not technically a ray-tracer, the
simmilar difficult may make it appealing). Currently everyone I've spoken likes
the fact that there is a middle road.

Believe it or not I am actually doing research on this for a school project. I'm
trying to get an idea of how many and what percentage of people prefer

a) a very basic SDL (less difficult than what we have currently)
b) an intermediate SDL (equal in difficulty or around as difficult to what we
have currently)
c) an advanced SDL (something that looks like C/C++ Java, Python, PHP, etc. or

d) someother description not referenced above.

If anyone could tell me whether they prefer a), b), c) or d) I'd certainly
appreciate it.

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I fear your fears don't really exist. :)

"Woody" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> As many others Like Warp and Clipka have mentioned, people that are scared away
> by SDLs often prefer graphical modellers. Very complicated SDLs that look like
> C/C++, Python, Java, etc. and also be scary.

What is really scary is to think people can even think a Python-like SDL would
be as complicated and scary like C/C++ or Java.

> My fear is that POVRay v4 SDL becomes too basic people will opt for an
> alternative like Blender,

This is false:  people opting for Blender are not doing it because it is
scriptable in Python rather than POV's SDL.

> whereas if it becomes too advanced they will opt for
> something more like OpenGL (even though it is not technically a ray-tracer, the
> simmilar difficult may make it appealing).

So, if it becomes "advanced and complicated" as Python, people will opt to make
inumerous low-level verbose calls to OpenGL?  riiiight...

More than anything, I fear you don't understand the technical jargon you're
talking about.

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> > My fear is that POVRay v4 SDL becomes too basic people will opt for an
> > alternative like Blender,
>

I apologize if I offended you with my lack of technical jargon knowledge or if I
made an inapropriate assumption.

With regards to Blender, I simply meant that if POVRay's SDL became to simple
they might opt for an alternative like blender that utilizes both the
"graphical modeller aproach" as well as the "text" based approach that POVRay
uses. In this respect they get the best of both worlds whereas they don't with
POVRAY.


> So, if it becomes "advanced and complicated" as Python, people will opt to make
> inumerous low-level verbose calls to OpenGL?  riiiight...

So OpenGL was not a good example. Let me clarify my position. The more abstract
and complicated something (like povray) is to learn, including how climplicated
the SDL/or scripting language, the more unattractive it is. If something becomes
overly complicated, you may gain a few users going from beginner to intermediate
or intermediate to advanced, but I'm sure you'll loose a few users who are
looking to become beginner or intermediate.

I simply meant that if openGL was less complicated game programming would
probably be taught along with BASIC in the fourth grade, and my uncle's grandma
would be making video games. My nephew in the fourth grade does stuff in POVRAY
because it is easy to learn.

Does that clarify my position and why I was using the wording I did?

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Woody wrote:
> Does that clarify my position and why I was using the wording I did?

Yes.

Still, I don't believe there are people out there composing Blender 
scenes entirely out of Python scripts, as is the norm in povray with 
SDL.  Blender is a graphical modeller and offers Python scripting to 
write extensions, not scenes like povray.  So, people won't fly away 
from povray in droves for Blender because of scripting, that's all.

Also, python is one of the simplest languages around, aside from the 
declarative and limited approach of the SDL.

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Woody wrote:
> a) a very basic SDL (less difficult than what we have currently)
> b) an intermediate SDL (equal in difficulty or around as difficult to what we
> have currently)
> c) an advanced SDL (something that looks like C/C++ Java, Python, PHP, etc. or
> 
> d) someother description not referenced above.

	d).

	I kind of object to:

1) This partitioning scheme. An SDL can be both simple and advanced - in
that it you can do a lot using _simple_ syntax and features of the
language, but if you want to do even more, you can use more complex
features. However, a new user need not deal with those.

2) Your characterization of Python as something that may scare lots of
people away.

	Well, OK, it _may_ scare people away compared to the current SDL. But
really - Python is well known for being a very easy language to learn if
you don't get in to the details (this is kind of my point 1 above). It's
a _lot_ easier to learn a little bit of Python and start coding than it
is C, C++, Java, or even Javascript. I've yet to come across any one who
tried learning Python and found it hard. They only complain about the
indenting issue.

	Python's gaining ground with a lot of social scientists in academia. I
suspect it's ease of use without hindering the programmer (other than
via performance) is the reason.

	The current SDL may be easy to learn, but it's a pain to do complex
things in it.

-- 
"Now we all know map companies hire guys who specialize in making map
folding a physical impossibility" - Adult Kevin Arnold in "Wonder Years"


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Mueen Nawaz escreveu:
> 	Python's gaining ground with a lot of social scientists in academia. I
> suspect it's ease of use without hindering the programmer (other than
> via performance) is the reason.

There's scypy and numpy for people who want good performance and 
higher-level semantics. :)

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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nemesis wrote:
> Mueen Nawaz escreveu:
>>     Python's gaining ground with a lot of social scientists in
>> academia. I
>> suspect it's ease of use without hindering the programmer (other than
>> via performance) is the reason.
> 
> There's scypy and numpy for people who want good performance and
> higher-level semantics. :)

	Yeah, but not on par with C, etc.

-- 
"Now we all know map companies hire guys who specialize in making map
folding a physical impossibility" - Adult Kevin Arnold in "Wonder Years"


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Mueen Nawaz escreveu:
> nemesis wrote:
>> Mueen Nawaz escreveu:
>>>     Python's gaining ground with a lot of social scientists in
>>> academia. I
>>> suspect it's ease of use without hindering the programmer (other than
>>> via performance) is the reason.
>> There's scypy and numpy for people who want good performance and
>> higher-level semantics. :)
> 
> 	Yeah, but not on par with C, etc.

They are just thin wrappers for scientific/numeric libs written in C.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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nemesis wrote:
> They are just thin wrappers for scientific/numeric libs written in C.

	Well, you may get comparable performance if you never do, say, a loop.
Or if you can manipulate large datasets using only the vectorized forms
and not make use of almost anything within the actual Python language.
In real world cases, it's unlikely.

	It's the same with MATLAB - they're just wrappers for libraries in
C/C++. Yet few perceive it to be as fast. You can always concoct
examples where they're comparable, but in reality, you may not be able
to vectorize everything.

	I often tell people that NumPy/SciPy is a "competitor" of MATLAB (and
has a much faster interpreter, which can make a big difference). If
MATLAB doesn't perform well for them, and if they properly know how to
use MATLAB, then I don't recommend NumPy/SciPy to them either.

-- 
"Now we all know map companies hire guys who specialize in making map
folding a physical impossibility" - Adult Kevin Arnold in "Wonder Years"


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Mueen Nawaz <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
> > There's scypy and numpy for people who want good performance and
> > higher-level semantics. :)
>
>  Yeah, but not on par with C, etc.

Vectorize, vectorize, vectorize!

 - Ricky

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