[Opensim-users] TechCrunch Article

[Daniel Smith]

On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 11:00 PM, Drew Hart <drewehart at gmail.com> wrote:

> Techcrunch, in writing about Linden's purchase of LittleTextPeople had
> this note:
>
> " Second Life in part revolves around its ability to let users create
> virtual objects and sell them for real money. The whole world is built on
> *old, inefficient code*, and if Linden tries to update it those virtual
> objects can break, triggering massive backlash from buyers and sellers."
> (Emphasis mine)
>

I can comment on a specific event that goes back to 2006 or 2007ish..
 Because the Lindens never provided a proper teleport call (their idea of
bringing up a map every time is unwieldly), there came about the method to
sit on something, move it, and unsit the user [1].  The part to do with
moving is interesting, because you cant move prim position more than 10
meters at a time...however, if you tell the prim to move many times to the
same place, in the call, you can get there fast (I'm glossing this over,
but it is basically: take me to 10,10,10.. take me to 10,10,10.. 20x if
need be...).  Well. there was a server update which broke this, rendering a
LOT of TP products useless.  The Lindens were forced to backtrack and put
the functionality back in (I recall one of them deriding it as a "hack" and
why cant people just use the map call)

As far as inefficient.... I've always wanted to buy Cory a beer and ask him
"what were you thinking?" :)  No switch statement.  No associative arrays.
 Slow list handling.  The list goes on. LSL is a language that one works
with because there is no alternative in SL.  Toni's email that refers to
JavaScript is spot on. Unity gives the choice of JavaScript, C#, or Boo as
scripting languages for that environment.  JS is universal.  To be fair,
Cory's decisions go back to 2003 or so.  In hindsight, it would have been
very advantageous to have added JavaScript in 2008 or so, and to retain the
original LSL for compatibility... as opposed to expending all of the effort
to port LSL to a Mono implementation (which was basically putting lipstick
on a pig :)

Daniel



[1] I am referring to the WarpPos() function, as implemented by users


>
> I am just curious - is this statement true?  Is it true of Open Sim?  I
> feel like it's not true, but I am curious for comment.  And are we
> sacrificing quality to ensure backwards compatibility?  I guess this is a
> philosophy issue.  Thanks,
>
> Drew
>
> http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/16/littletextpeople/
>
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>
>


-- 
Daniel Smith - Sonoma County, California
http://daniel.org/resume
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