"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
> I hope I'm not weighing in with some 'simpleton' comments here (I'm definitely
> NO computer scientist), but the way I approach discussions of a proposed new
> SDL language is strictly from the standpoint of 'comfortable usability.' As
> basically a non-programmer (except with the SDL), I would want to see a
> language that made 'simple sense' as to its syntax. For example: The #while
> loop is easily understood, simply from the fact of its name. Using #for instead
> seems a bit 'obtuse' as to its meaning (except among programmers, of course!)

Good point - unfortunately, for us programmers the "non-obviousness" of such
things is not obvious for us ;) So we definitely need non-programmers to point
such things out to us.

How about this - would these be more obvious for a non-programmer? (Be invited
to pick your favourite or roll your own)

    #for i from 0 to N-1  ...  #end
    #with i from 0 to N-1  ...  #end
    #foreach i in 0 to N-1  ...  #end


> Of course, I could be the 'odd-man-out'; perhaps the majority of POV-Ray users
> *do* actually come from some kind of programming background, where 'odd' syntax
> terms are of no consequence.

.... which is not necessarily the point, because even if most POV-Ray users would
come from a programming background, it could be *because* the syntax might be
not obvious enough to others. Which in that case would rather speak in favor of
making the language more intuitive to noobs.

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