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Second Life script limitations to prejudice against Mono?
In a sense, script memory limitations aren't coming to Second Life; they already exist. What's going on is the process of Linden Lab making those limits predictable, and setting things up in such a way that script memory usage doesn't cause simulator processes to thrash madly (from paging memory to and from disk). There's some interesting side-effects emerging from the overall prototype implementation, however. Mono (and, eventually C# when or if it becomes implemented as a scripting language) look like the losers.
Long-delayed Second Life script-limitations back in the public eye
It's now just over one year since Linden Lab announced that they would be implementing a some manner of script limitations over and above those which are presently a part of Second Life as it stands today. It is just over eleven months since those limitations were rescheduled to go ahead in Q3 2009 – which time has definitely long passed. Nevertheless, the script limitations system is alive and well and coming up, apparently in 2010. This constitutes good news, very good news and not so good news (in roughly that order).
Why Second Life inventory transactions fail
Peter Stindberg of Babel Translations has put together an exhaustive accounting of how Second Life inventory items can be transferred between users and what the nominal success-rates of those transfers actually are. Some kinds of transfers will always succeed (except in unusual circumstances – which admittedly do happen). Others will always fail. Some ride the grey zone in-between. If scripted or non-scripted inventory transfers matter to you (and if you're a content-creator, a scripter or distributor, they probably do), it's definitely worth your time to check out Stindberg's very cogent analysis, which includes tips on how to mitigate non-delivery issues. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Using kill-switches for safer Second Life scripts
Realistically, there are ton of things that can go wrong with scripted systems in Second Life. Most of them can be worked around comparatively easily, if you're willing to pay a little attention to the details. Skimping on those details can lead to runaway objects, or even executing a distributed denial-of-service attack against your own systems. A lot of people do skimp, however. Sometimes it's sloppiness, but more often it's just a matter of inexperience. Sometimes you need to be bitten before you think of these things. Some of us have been bitten more than once.
Second Life objects to become HTTP-aware
While Second Life users wait with 'bated breath for the SLS 1.27 deployment that will sort out a large number of crippling group communications failures, there's an extra bonus lurking in the code. SLS1.27 will be adding an HTTP-in feature which will allow HTTP requests to be sent to Second Life objects. At present, Second Life objects can only 'dial out' to external Web-servers and services, but with few practical methods of communicating that external data and resources have changed, many object creators have had to settle for frequent polling of Web-services for data.
SLS 1.24: Second Life rolling update, rolling out now
According to an announcement by Linden Lab, the SLS1.24 (version 1.24 of the Second Life server/simulator code) rollout to servers is happening right now. While Linden Lab have normally given at least a little advance notice, and a schedule for the server-side software updates (which can be disruptive), no such notice or schedule were published. All we have been told is that it will "take a number of days"; we assume that is probably different to the usual three-day schedule. Actually, if you haven't been reading Massively lately, this whole update probably comes as a complete surprise. As we mentioned previously, the 1.21 release candidate viewer that you'll need in order to take full advantage of this release isn't due until next week, though you can probably access the Mono functionality with the preview grid viewers -- just remember to change the grid target to -grid agni in order to access the main grid. Patch notes are after the jump. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
New Second Life features due next week
Linden Lab is expected to roll out SLS1.24 (version 1.24 of the Second Life server/simulator code) this coming week with both the new Mono script-engine runtime and Qarl Linden's new touch-position code. We're confident that you'll see announcements for those on Monday or Tuesday (the 18th or 19th) describing the update schedule through the course of the week. We wouldn't be surprised to see something of a media push accompanying it; that would be consistent with the way the new Lab is operating these days. The Mono script-engine runtime increases the amount of memory available to new or recompiled LSL scripts (from 16K to 64K) -- though at the expense of increased memory consumption -- while also largely increasing the speed of them, especially for intensive calculations. Mono is, primarily, part of the platform stabilization project rather than a new feature for the sake of new features. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Tools of the trade: Scratch for SL
MIT Media Lab's Eric Rosenbaum has produced a wonderful little tool called Scratch for Second Life (S4SL). Available for Mac or Windows (but not Linux at present, alas) S4SL allows you to create scripts by assembling simple colorful shapes (a bit like plastic bricks). S4SL is based on MIT's Scratch, and allows you to put together some useful functionality very simply. S4SL isn't going to make you a star creator of scripts overnight, though -- anyone who knows Second Life's LSL scripting language and has a modicum of programming skill can do much more, but that's not the point here.
LSL vs Mono deathmatch
While the upcoming Mono is agreeably faster than LSL for Second Life scripts, and in many cases a lot faster, there are some situations where this does not always appear to hold true. One such case is object updates. At present scripts that perform object updates might not perform faster than LSL - and might actually be a bit slower. Thanks to Todd Borst, we can show that to you, in glorious video, direct from the beta-grid!
Under The Grid: Mono in Second Life
Welcome to the seventh installment of "Under The Grid", an irregular look at the mechanics underneath Second Life. The last installment was back on Second Life Insider, last year - so don't worry that you've not seen it here on Massively before. There's a lot of talk about Mono being rolled out in Second Life and a lot of general confusion, or excited misunderstanding about what it means. Mono isn't just a benefit for Second Life scripters its for everyone.
