[Opensim-dev] Place for osFoo functions that only work with certain languages

[Mike Mazur]

Hi,

On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 7:13 PM, Rob Smart <rob.s.smart at gmail.com> wrote:
> If we are to stick rigidly to LSL then they must be functionally equivalent
> which includes language and API access.

I disagree.

Let's consider an example: Google App Engine applications are
implemented in Python[1]. If you read the section titled "The
Application Environment" in [1] you will notice the statement "The
runtime environment includes the full Python language and most of the
Python standard library." This means that not all of the Python
standard library (or standard API) is available in Google App Engine
(read the section "The Python Runtime Environment" for more on this).

Is Google App Engine still using Python even though they don't provide
the complete set of standard Python libraries? The answer is yes.

> Otherwise an LSL script written in OpenSim cannot simply be cut and pasted
> into SL and expected to run.

Will any arbitrary Python application run on Google App Engine? If the
application depends on a part of the standard Python libraries that
App Engine does not provide, the application will not run. This
limitation does *not* change the programming language in App Engine,
it's still Python.

Is the opposite true: can an App Engine application be run as-is
outside of Google App Engine? Since App Engine provides APIs for
access to Google accounts, its datastore, etc, the application will
only work in App Engine if those functions are called.

In all cases, the application in mind uses Python.

A similar situation currently exists in OpenSim. Any script written in
LSL that uses OpenSim's osFunctions() will not run in SL. However,
they are still both using the exact same language: LSL. This is
entirely acceptable.

Of course it would be great if Linden Labs would implement
osFunctions() and provide them on their platform as well ;)

Mike

[1] http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/whatisgoogleappengine.html