Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> William Tracy <wtr### [at] calpolyedu> wrote:
> > If we're going to re appropriate an existing language, maybe we could
> > look at some of the functional languages (Lisp, ML, etc.).
>
>   Next you are going to suggest Haskell.
>
> --
>                                                           - Warp

oh boy!  this is getting exciting!  I just hope someone doesn't mention java
or .net... and while haskell is rather nice, to get any performance with it
you need the friggin huge GHC compiler!

come on!  let's be realistic:  the SDL just needs a scripting language with
small foorprint, high performance and syntax and semantics flexible enough
to allow for easy DSL creation (SDL).  And this most likely mean AST
interpreters or similar.

I like Scheme but I understand there's not really any interpreter for it out
there that matches these requirements, and of course many people are put
down by the parentheses as much as are put down by python indented blocks
or perl's cryptic nature.  I guess Lisp macros are wonderful for DSL
building, which is a shame.

Python and Perl are pretty heavy by now.  Lua or Tcl are more lightweight.
Lua is a lot more modern and well supported than Tcl these days.  Anything
else which doesn't require a java VM or .NET?

As far as I understand, the purpose about this discussion is not really
about having a completely new SDL with new syntax, but mostly to alleviate
the need for a builtin and complex C parser maintained by povray
developers.  And of course, putting more power in the hands of those who
want more than basic SDL, ifs and loops by leveraging a complete and well
supported external programming language...

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