[Opensim-dev] Sit position changes in OpenSimulator b6df9e9 (Sat 5th Nov 2011)

[Edmund Edgar]

Going forward it sounds the right way has to be to fix the thing and
deal with the pain, but as a general principle, the system
administrator in me says you should provide a config switch if you can
do it without a lot of extra work.

When you have to make a change that affects your users, it's always
best to have options which steps you perform in what order. For
example, in a behind-the-firewall school build you might have a load
of content that you don't want to mess with in the middle of the term,
but you might still want to upgrade to get some bug fixes, especially
if there are some security issues involved.

It's also good to have the option of reverting a user-facing change if
somebody discovers something they've overlooked and need to spend more
time preparing for. A version upgrade can often be reverted with effort, but
it's much easier to revert a config change.

It's true that giving administrators this choice risks keeping the old thing
circulating for longer, but not doing that risks them just not upgrading,
which causes the same problems plus a bunch of other ones.

-- 
Edmund Edgar
Founder, KK Social Minds
Educational Technology for the Web and Virtual Worlds

ed at socialminds.jp
+81 090 3912 3380
Skype: edmundedgar
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Linked In: edmundedgar
Twitter: @edmundedgar
http://www.socialminds.jp