OpenSim: Scripting

An important ingredience in Second Life is scripting. It is the engine that drives it all.
In SL LSL (Linden Scripting Language) is the language you have to use. This language has its limitations, and is executed very slowly. But nevertheless it works and it gets the job done.

Linden Labs are planning to move LSL scripting over to C# on Mono some time in the future. This has been in the works since 2005 at least. There are many difficult technical challenges related to this.

OpenSim supports LSL and C# scripts. But with limitations:

• Not all commands and events has been implemented. See LlFunction_implementation_status for details on what commands work and not.
• Scripts that are running can not cross regions.
• You can not use loops inside your scripts. Actually you can use loops, but it will block other scripts from executing.

The OpenSim script engine compiles the LSL code down to .Net code that is JIT'ed to CPU native gode. In effect this means that a LSL script in OpenSim performing pure mathematical functions will have speed close to a C++ program. Of course normally you don't do much math, but still speed should be ok.

The ScriptEngine is being developed by many developers. If you want to contribute, have a look at the OpenSim.Region.ScriptEngine page.
A blog with development status can be found at http://teddmaa.blogspot.com/.