Something revolutionary is coming!

Softimage have been developing a new extension for their existing software, Softimage XSI. To quote a post (perhaps the most exciting one i've ever read there) at XSIbase :-

(It) will do for particles, custom ops, and tools, etc what the render tree has done for custom look development. That is, open it up to many more people and increase the rate of development.

Basically, it seems as if you will be able to add your own complex features based around existing operations perhaps without any coding experience.