Purpose
Like most scripting languages, COFFEE is used to extend or modify the functionality of the host software. This technique is preferable to writing a so-called plug-in module using a traditional language such as C for a number of reasons, among them:
- The scripting language implicitly handles memory management on the user's behalf, where C does not;
- The language interpreter does not require programs to be compiled as a separate step before they can be used;
- A purpose-built scripting language can be tailored so that it lends itself to its intended usage. For example, COFFEE has built-in mathematical functions that are necessary for 3D graphics programming.
There are several different aspects of CINEMA 4D's operation that can be customised using COFFEE scripts, notably additions to the user interface and extensions for reading and writing new file formats and creating texture shaders. Almost all the main functionality of the application can be accessed from a COFFEE program, and so customised features can look and behave much like those supplied as standard.
Read more about this topic: COFFEE (Cinema 4D)
Famous quotes containing the word purpose:
“In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“Since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that
the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I have never doubted your courage and devotion to the cause. But you have just lost a Division, and prima facie the fault is upon you; and while that remains unchanged, for me to put you in command again, is to justly subject me to the charge of having put you there on purpose to have you lose another.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)