SLDev-Traffic 17

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sldev-traffic no 17

sldev discussions through June 22, 2007

Source Releases

Anthony Foster (Linden) posted the 1.18.0.0 source tarballs, with gratitude from Rob Lanphier (Linden) for the speed at which it's been posted.

Right now, the Windlight source only exists in the SVN, and at least one list member reported problems building, owing to glh/glh_lindear missing from the headers.

Cleaning Up the Linux Build Doc

Max Okumoto had a go at cleaning up the Linux build instructions, with Dale Glass further refining the documentation afterward. Bryan O'Sullivan (Linden) commented that he'd made changes to the SConstruct script that should make it easy to build without the bundled libraries. Look for this in a coming release - it will make the Linux build easier still.

Less Like a Sieve, More Like an Old Bucket

Thew viewer's not leaking anywhere near so much as it used to, thanks in very large part to Nicholaz Beresford's cleanup work. Nicholaz posts about it on his blog. There's little doubt that there will be more leakage in the future as Lindens race to make the kinds of radical changes that grow Second Life, but the closer the viewer stays to Nicholaz' new baseline, the better.

JIRA Pain

For four weekends in a row, JIRA has gone into molasses mode, sometimes taking terribly long to load pages, sometimes going away entirely. Rob Lanphier (Linden) confirms that an upgrade is pending, but doesn't have a date.

Matthew Dowd points to a known JIRA issue that's fixed in the newest version, manifesting as a "docs out of order" message. Matthew created a JIRA about it at https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-180, with Torley Linden asking for direct email with "WEB-180" in the subject line next time it surfaces.

SVN Source Merging Script

Dale Glass posts a script for merging new versions of the source into a private SVN repository, linked from his original post.

SVK For Local SVN Staging, GIT, and More

Dale Glass posts a brief introduction to using subversion and svk, which allows many of the benefits of svn write status on a read-only repository. The page is at source version control. Dzonatas Sol and Paul Hampson sing the praises of git and git-svn as well, noting that Linus Torvalds has called git production-ready, although both note that a good GUI would be advantageous, wishing for TortoiseGIT. Here's hoping!

Paul Hampson links to an introduction to git-svn for former svn-svk users.

Further piling onto the discussion, Joshua Bell (Linden) mentions that Mercurial is similar to git, is cross-platform, and that there's a "tortoise-hg" project under way.

The P Word

Tim Shephard raises the question of plugin issues again, linking to a recent Reuters article on the subject. There was some discussion about how plugins could allow some tools that could increase user retention, but the thread quickly shifted into a discussion of the largest issues adversely affecting the Second Life user experience, the biggest of which wouldn't be solved by client side changes.

Proper Constant Parsing and Lex/Yacc help

Thanks to Dzonatas Sol's input and another patch from Argent Stonecutter, LSL is no longer swallowing subtraction operations as oddly placed negative constants. With Monday's optional update, some of those silly long-standing syntax errors that most often pop up when subtracting in loop compares will be gone.

Argent Stonecutter followed up with a little more detail on how constant folding could be done while still respecting order of precedence when variables and constants were in the mix.

Fontconfig

Alissa Sabre created a page with User:Alissa Sabre/Notes on fontconfig, explaining what it is, why the viewer should or shouldn't use it, and going into additional detail on how it could be used in the viewer.

This could address a number of current font issues, however at present there hasn't been any follow-up discussion.

CPU and GPU Statistics

Soft Linden posted a sample of all of the CPU and GPU strings returned by residents' viewers over a one week period. After some analysis, there was a consensus that the strings need additional detail in order to provide meaningful information about the ability of the various machines used to visit Second Life.

We're fully willing to accept any enhancements to CPU and GPU identification and run another round of data if it would be useful to sldev members.

We've Got Patches

Nicholaz Beresford and Gigs Taggart both posted lists of new patches. From Nicholaz, VWR-1294 and VWR-1296. From Gigs, a number all linked to his post, five more, which I believe are all in the JIRA.

At least two of Gigs' are already in our internal maintenance branch, and should be in Monday's optional viewer update. Sardonyx Linden claimed both of Nicholaz's patches, and at least one was in within half an hour. Nicholaz said we were giving the WINE project a run for its money on the speed of that import. We're doing better, and we'll push to keep that up.

Thanks for patchin'!