> Think of the differences from the implementors side:
> memory management -- a named object, once declared, is known to be
> pointing at a valid group of data of a known size. That's that.
I would if we had to implement a new language. I guess I was hoping
we would use an existing language so that the primary concerns could be
ease of expression for authors, and communications efficiency for
performance?
Your knowledge of the differences between declarative and
procedural languages is out of my reach, so I'm going back
off and listen for a while. I'm primarily interested in 1) ease of
expression to an author and 2) efficiency of network use so as to optimize
communication performance. These don't even have to be
provided by the same language as far as I can see? I really don't have
a vested interest in any particular language approach as long as these
needs are met. It wouldn't bother me if there were translators (or compilers,
or interpreters) from the author's language, to the interchange language, to
the rendering language. Compiler and interpreter technologies are
well developed so I really don't understand the implementation concerns
that you have, nor do I think they should be of primary concern.
BTW. Do you have a reference for an example declarative style langauge?
Perhaps with an ftp'able source?
....
[... strongly typed VRML?]
> Hmmm ... what happens when someone hands you a sphere, and then
> says, "no, its a cube". Typing has its place ...
Are we talking about a single VRML interaction with a server, or multiple?
How did this change of mind take place? Did the author not test the
VR scene before publishing?
John