Mono/2008-04-04

[14:59]  DNA: 1228 bytes free
[14:59]  Move: Anchor on. No-fall mode off. 
[14:59]  Connecting to in-world Voice Chat...
[14:59]  Connected
[15:00]  Phantom Ninetails: Greetings
[15:00]  Periapse Linden: Hi, Phantom
[15:00]  Periapse Linden: so have you had a chance to try out this new build?
[15:00]  Phantom Ninetails: Yeah, I tried a couple of vehicles, one of them didn't do so well
[15:00]  Periapse Linden: new issue?
[15:00]  Phantom Ninetails: Seems that way
[15:01]  Phantom Ninetails: When I recompiled all of the scripts in a helicopter, took it into my inventory, and rezzed it again, it gave a huge amount of "unrecognized bytecode" errors
[15:01]  Periapse Linden: oh? that doesn't sound good.
[15:01]  Periapse Linden: are you sure that every script was recompiled?
[15:02]  Phantom Ninetails: Well, it said it was done
[15:02]  Periapse Linden: I guess i could test to see if Babbage changed the compilation key.
[15:02]  Phantom Ninetails: Alrighty
[15:02]  Rex Cronon: hello everybody
[15:03]  Periapse Linden: Do you have to recompile all your previously compiled to mono scripts?
[15:03]  Periapse Linden: Hi, Rex.
[15:03]  Phantom Ninetails: Hmm, I'm not sure if all of them yet, but at least most
[15:03]  Periapse Linden: So you're saying that if you take a script you compiled to mono previously, with this release you have to recompile it?
[15:04]  Phantom Ninetails: Yeah
[15:04]  Periapse Linden: if that's so it means the compile key has changed. Babbage didn't mention that.
[15:04]  Periapse Linden: Sadly, he's not around right now.
[15:04]  Phantom Ninetails: :(
[15:04]  Periapse Linden: I'll try to verify it after the office hour.
[15:04]  Phantom Ninetails: Okay
[15:05]  Periapse Linden: Hello, Becky, Sai.
[15:05]  Becky Pippen: Hi all
[15:05]  Rex Cronon: hi becky
[15:05]  Saijanai Kuhn: hey all
[15:05]  Rex Cronon: hi sai
[15:05]  Phantom Ninetails: May want to turn off scripts since any compilations from the previous build will give a huge rain of errors when rezzed.
[15:06]  Periapse Linden: anyone else having trouble with "unrecognized bytecode" errors since the new deploy?
[15:06]  Saijanai Kuhn: haven't tested since then.
[15:06]  Periapse Linden: I'm going to take Phantom's advice and turn off scripts for this office hour.
[15:06]  Entering god mode, level 200
[15:06]  Phantom Ninetails: :)
[15:07]  Leaving god mode, level 200
[15:07]  Periapse Linden: Ok, scripting is off for the time being.
[15:07]  Periapse Linden: So besides this new version, I have some other news to report
[15:08]  Periapse Linden: Now that Havok4 is merged into release, and live on agni, we can at last work on merging Mono with Havok
[15:08]  Phantom Ninetails: Oooh
[15:08]  Periapse Linden: Next week Babbage and Scouse are going to do this merge, likely a convoluted and nasty one
[15:09]  Saijanai Kuhn: good stuff. I hope you have several kinds of sims running here: H4, mono and the combined one
[15:09]  Phantom Ninetails: Heh
[15:09]  Periapse Linden: And the next Mono build should include Havok4
[15:09]  Saijanai Kuhn: Like I said, I hope you keep some pre-H4 sims around
[15:09]  Periapse Linden: Sai, do you see a lot of utility in having a sim which is Havok1/Mono (basically, like this one is now)?
[15:10]  Periapse Linden: I'm thinking that after the merge we just want havok4/Mono
[15:10]  Periapse Linden: since that's how it will go out on the main grid
[15:10]  Saijanai Kuhn: well, for regression testing, yeah. So people can walk between two sims and see how the behavior changes for a given script, if it does
[15:11]  Periapse Linden: I think that's more important internally, to see where a bug has crept in. But for your testing you probably just want to test havok4 and Mono
[15:11]  Periapse Linden: But I will ask the deploy team how much work is involved in keeping some "reference" havok1 regions about on the beta grid.
[15:12]  Saijanai Kuhn: well, you have more warm bodies who can note strangeness. I'd keep a live version of this sim going on general principles. Especially if you need to back up for some reason
[15:12]  Rex Cronon: i think that some people that are interested in h4 might also like to test h1
[15:13]  Periapse Linden: But, Rex, h1 is no more.
[15:13]  Saijanai Kuhn: except right here.
[15:14]  Rex Cronon: i know, but if somebody finds something wierd with h4 they might want to go back to h1 to see if same thing happens there
[15:14]  Periapse Linden: yeah, no more on the main grid. I will ask the deploy team, but keeping separate sim channels around is a manual process for them
[15:14]  Periapse Linden: I don't want to request it unless it will definitely see use
[15:14]  Saijanai Kuhn: well, its supposed to be possible due to het-grid.
[15:14]  Saijanai Kuhn: I'm thinking that you need one for regression testing
[15:14]  Rex Cronon: maybe not on main grid, but at least here for a few more months
[15:14]  Periapse Linden: Indeed sai, possible but labor intensive, especially as the number of channels grows
[15:15]  Saijanai Kuhn: not all possible bugs will be due to the changes in H4 physics behavior, but there might be some due to strange code itneractions.
[15:15]  Saijanai Kuhn: interactions*
[15:16]  Periapse Linden: Right. Well, and we are certainly interested (read apprehensive) to find out what new behaviors result from h4 and Mono combined
[15:16]  Saijanai Kuhn: I just think its wise to keep at least one older sim around for regression testing by the community not just internal QA
[15:17]  Periapse Linden: Noted, Sai. I'll suggest that we keep one host for havok1 without Mono, and one for havok1 with Mono, and see what they say.
[15:18]  Saijanai Kuhn: thats ideal, yeah
[15:18]  Phantom Ninetails: Crashed
[15:18]  Periapse Linden: Note that the minimum is one host (four regions)
[15:18]  Rex Cronon: u can't have only 1 region?
[15:19]  Periapse Linden: Well, you *can*, but it's a waste of the machine
[15:19]  Phantom Ninetails: Can't have different types of regions on the same machine?
[15:19]  Periapse Linden: we run one sim per cpu core, and the machines are all quad core
[15:19]  Periapse Linden: Only one binary is shipped to each host
[15:19]  Phantom Ninetails: Ah
[15:20]  Periapse Linden: so all regions on that host need to be running the same sim version
[15:20]  Phantom Ninetails: Interesting
[15:20]  Periapse Linden: the simulators start up with the binary, and then query to find regions to run
[15:21]  Saijanai Kuhn: thats different than what I thought we heard about het-grid, but this was months ago and I may have misheard or things were changed as they were implemented
[15:22]  Periapse Linden: Sai -- what did you hear? I'm the PM for the het grid project, so I'm naturally curious
[15:22]  Rex Cronon: i wonder is this info anywhere on wiki?
[15:23]  Periapse Linden: Simulator startup info? No -- I don't think this is something anyone has wikified, as it has a rather select audience
[15:23]  Saijanai Kuhn: anyway, my vote is for keeping an h4 sim, an h1 + mono sim and various h4 + mono sims all running so you can test regression AND test sim crossig issues
[15:23]  Periapse Linden: basically just a few residents like yourselves
[15:23]  Saijanai Kuhn: I think it was at Zero's OH ages ago.
[15:24]  Periapse Linden: ah. Well what het grid allows us to do is to set up "channels"
[15:24]  Periapse Linden: Like the channel for this region is "Mono"
[15:24]  Saijanai Kuhn: perhaps I was thinking about update issues. That an older sim could keep running the old binary until reboot
[15:25]  Periapse Linden: So when this region starts up, it will get picked up by a host running the current version for the channel Mono
[15:26]  Periapse Linden: But the current version of het grid doesn't manage what we call "spares" -- sim hosts that are idle.
[15:26]  Periapse Linden: So right now there are several hosts for this grid that are idle
[15:27]  Periapse Linden: if one of the main channel hosts (hosts running Second Life Release) goes down
[15:27]  Periapse Linden: then a spare will pick up the four downed regions
[15:28]  Periapse Linden: With the current state of het grid, there is no management of the alternative channels
[15:28]  Periapse Linden: so there are no spares for any other channels, like Mono
[15:28]  Periapse Linden: If this host goes down, then it will take manual intervention to get these regions running again
[15:29]  Periapse Linden: We have a second phase for het grid, spec'ed out but not implemented, which introduces dynamic spare management
[15:29]  Periapse Linden: All regions on a given host will still have to run the same simulator
[15:30]  Periapse Linden: however the spare host can transform itslelf into any channel that is needed, by downloading the appropriate binary
[15:30]  Phantom Ninetails: Sounds like a rather nifty system
[15:30]  Saijanai Kuhn: ah, OK. So I either misunderstood what Zero said back 6 months ago (or whatever) or the spec changed slightly since then
[15:31]  Rex Cronon: is too bad that a host, can't have a channel for h1, one for h1+mono, one for h4, one for h4 + mono
[15:31]  Periapse Linden: Studio Icehouse has seen a lot of opportunity in the sim deploy and running arena
[15:32]  Periapse Linden: Rex -- we really can't consider multiple versions per host
[15:32]  Periapse Linden: each host, in addition to simulators, runs a local backbone for web services
[15:33]  Periapse Linden: that local backbone is a single instance, and is tied to the simulator version
[15:33]  Periapse Linden: So there would be message failures if we put different sims on a single host
[15:34]  Rex Cronon: i think i understand how it works
[15:34]  Rex Cronon: that might explain how 1 sim can cause lag in other sims that share same host
[15:34]  Periapse Linden: lol -- this mono office hour is turning out to be all about het grid
[15:34]  Phantom Ninetails: lol
[15:34]  Saijanai Kuhn: its all good...
[15:34]  Periapse Linden: yes, rex, precisely
[15:35]  Saijanai Kuhn: most of us are also AWG members I think
[15:35]  Periapse Linden: well, in for a penny, in for a pound. Let me tell you about Het Grid Intermezzo
[15:35]  Periapse Linden: Intermezzo is the next het grid release
[15:35]  Saijanai Kuhn is sticking a reference to this on the AW groupes chat log site
[15:35]  Periapse Linden: it's designed specifically to mitigate the most onerous db query
[15:36]  Periapse Linden: which happens as those spare hosts I mentioned earlier all try (at regular intervals) to query the db looking for regions to run
[15:36]  Periapse Linden: It's the "spares query" or "region presence query"
[15:37]  Periapse Linden: Each spare host does this individually, and often. And we have hundreds of spares for the main grid.
[15:37]  Periapse Linden: Intermezzo introduces a new process called the Region Conductor
[15:37]  Periapse Linden: which will basically serve to cache region presence.
[15:38]  Periapse Linden: It does the spares query, in the most general form, and keeps the data in memory, updating regularly.
[15:38]  Periapse Linden: and all the spares simply contact the Conductor instead of directly querying the db
[15:39]  Phantom Ninetails: That's a good idea
[15:39]  Periapse Linden: And it's got all kinds of other nifty things like startup throttling built in
[15:39]  Saijanai Kuhn: a lot of this stuff is simply a bunch of Python scripts, right?
[15:39]  Periapse Linden: We call it "Intermezzo" because this is an intermediate release between het grid one (which is live) and het grid two (the dynamic spares management)
[15:40]  Periapse Linden: The Conductor will evolve from being a cache of region presence to the full on spare manager
[15:40]  Rex Cronon: trying to make the grid as fail-safe as possible is a good thing:)
[15:40]  Periapse Linden: Right now Intermezzo is in final QA before merging to release. We hope to have it go live in a couple weeks.
[15:40]  Saijanai Kuhn is wondering how theagent domain will fit in there
[15:41]  Periapse Linden: The database should immediately see improvement
[15:41]  Phantom Ninetails: Nifty
[15:41]  Periapse Linden: Oh, Sai, this has nothing to do with agents at all. It's about regions
[15:41]  Rex Cronon: when u say, u mean a db, made out of all the sims on the main grid right?
[15:42]  Rex Cronon: when u say db*
[15:42]  Periapse Linden: rex, yes, a table with all the regions
[15:42]  Saijanai Kuhn: sure, but right now the sim is doing all the agent domain work as well.
[15:42]  Periapse Linden: basically its rows are region, channel, enabled, state, and a few more
[15:43]  Periapse Linden: So if you're a spare in channel Mono, you'd select regions that are enabled, in channel Mono, but currently down
[15:43]  Periapse Linden: and if you got anything back that would be a region you could now run
[15:44]  Periapse Linden: i'm sorry, I said "rows" -- imeant columns
[15:44]  Rex Cronon: i guess keeping sims that run h1+mono, might be a waste, as all sims in same host, have to be similar
[15:45]  Periapse Linden: Sai -- indeed. The sims pretty much do everything now. Hopefully now that we have an agent domain, we can start moving thing out of the sims.
[15:45]  Periapse Linden: BTW -- that's another tasty tidbit. We actually have a prototype agent domain running on this grid right now
[15:46]  Periapse Linden: It's just a baby agent domain, with one host, and all it does is login.
[15:46]  Saijanai Kuhn: At the least, I'd keep the ability to run one if needed. Regressions testing will be impossible for the betaa testsers in the community and you might find that of value
[15:46]  Periapse Linden: But it does work!
[15:46]  Saijanai Kuhn: Ueaj. O
[15:46]  Saijanai Kuhn: home keys...
[15:47]  Phantom Ninetails: Some very interesting things indeed
[15:47]  Saijanai Kuhn: I'm documenting the rez_avatar portion for Tess
[15:47]  Saijanai Kuhn: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Saijanai_Kuhn/Rez_Avatar_Capability
[15:47]  Periapse Linden: Oh, Sai -- thank you! That's ossm. I haven't had the time to do anything for that
[15:48]  Saijanai Kuhn: taking her strawman docs and putting it into SLGOGP format
[15:48]  Periapse Linden: but we really need to get rez_avatar into the protocol.
[15:48]  Darien Caldwell: hi everyone :)
[15:48]  Rex Cronon: hi darien
[15:48]  Phantom Ninetails: Hello
[15:48]  Periapse Linden: So, I should ask, does anyone have any Mono questions before I continue blathering about this other stuff?
[15:48]  Saijanai Kuhn: if you see something wrong with what I did, or something that is missing, let me know
[15:49]  Periapse Linden: I will, Sai. For the rest of you, "Rez avatar" is the implementation of a new, open protocol for making an agent appear inworld as an avatar
[15:50]  Periapse Linden: this is part of the Open Grid intiative that the AWG has been working on with us
[15:50]  Saijanai Kuhn: it fits between login and beging able to do things like group IM and inventory transfer
[15:50]  Periapse Linden: and key to future interoperability
[15:50]  Darien Caldwell: so what is defined as an agent in that sense?
[15:50]  Periapse Linden: Imagine logging in to second life, and then teleporting to some other grid entirely
[15:50]  Saijanai Kuhn: actually group IM will be enabled BEFORE rez avatar
[15:51]  Periapse Linden: Darien -- great question.
[15:51]  Periapse Linden: We had to pin down the terms we used early on
[15:51]  Periapse Linden: Because it started to get too confusing
[15:51]  Darien Caldwell: i bet :)
[15:51]  Periapse Linden: So an agent is an identity that you can log into a grid with.
[15:52]  Periapse Linden: An avatar is the inworld representation of that agent.
[15:52]  Periapse Linden: Note that with login happening on an agent domain, we can separate these two concepts
[15:52]  Darien Caldwell nods
[15:52]  Periapse Linden: you can have a valid agent, and yet no avatar
[15:53]  Periapse Linden: in other words, you're logged in, and an agent process is representing you on the agent domain. but you are not connected to any sim
[15:53]  Saijanai Kuhn: hence the ability to do IM and inventoyr.
[15:53]  Periapse Linden: this opens up many possibilities for doing lightweight clients that alow for im and inventoyr
[15:53]  Saijanai Kuhn: no more ruthed chat bots
[15:53]  Periapse Linden: yes
[15:53]  Darien Caldwell: interesting
[15:53]  Phantom Ninetails: Nifty
[15:54]  Darien Caldwell: is this still in planning, or is it beginning to be implemented?
[15:54]  Saijanai Kuhn: it also means that you can decide to travel from Second Life to Joe's Garage without doing a new login
[15:54]  Periapse Linden: Darien -- there is already a prototype agent domain up and running for this grid.
[15:55]  Saijanai Kuhn: I need to test my login script against it too
[15:55]  Periapse Linden: it currently allows an alternate login path, basically a proof of concept
[15:55]  Periapse Linden: as announced at the Virtual Worlds conference Linden Lab and IBM are working together to extend this.
[15:55]  Darien Caldwell nods
[15:56]  Saijanai Kuhn: did you catch the Congressional hearing on SL and virtual worlds?
[15:56]  Periapse Linden: Before the end of the year the tech will be in place to allow companies to host their own grids (securely, behind their firewalls)
[15:56]  Darien Caldwell: I heard IBM is doing this already
[15:56]  Periapse Linden: and their employees can have second life accounts and teleport between SL and the internal grid
[15:56]  Saijanai Kuhn: http://energycommerce.house.gov/cmte_mtgs/110-ti-hrg.040108.VirtualWorlds.shtml
[15:57]  Phantom Ninetails: Very nifty stuff
[15:57]  Darien Caldwell: http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2008/04/02/ibm-to-host-private-second-life-regions/
[15:57]  Periapse Linden: Yes, Sai -- did you see the video?
[15:57]  Saijanai Kuhn: yeah. Typcial long-winded congressional hearing. 1/3 is the members getting their 30 seconds of fame on camera. But historical even so
[15:57]  Periapse Linden: Thanks, Darien. yes, we are working closely with IBM. They have the grid set up, so now we are working on getting SL and their grid to talkto each other
[15:58]  Periapse Linden: That's where the AWG's Open Grid Protocol comes in
[15:58]  Saijanai Kuhn: shameless plug, if you're not a member of AW Groupies in-world. IM me on the main grid for an invite
[15:58]  Darien Caldwell: yes, there has been a lot of talk, many are concerned about what happens when user generated content jumps grids, so to speak.
[15:58]  Phantom Ninetails: I've never even heard of your group before today, Sai
[15:59]  Saijanai Kuhn: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Protecting_content_in_an_open_grid
[15:59]  Periapse Linden: That is the one issue we are most concerned about also, Darien. We are discussing how to do that safely.
[15:59]  Saijanai Kuhn: Phantom, the group was founded by Zha Ewry of IBM, to discuss the AWG stuff on a weekly business inworld
[15:59]  Periapse Linden: It's actually a great topic for the AWG, or at least the Groupies
[16:00]  Darien Caldwell: yes, agreed
[16:00]  Rex Cronon: maybe on tuesdays sai?
[16:00]  Periapse Linden: thanks's Sai, you've always got the link
[16:00]  Saijanai Kuhn: yeah. Grouipes look at everything. The AWG officially looks at the 2 year plan Linden Lab has set up
[16:00]  Phantom Ninetails: And what about AWG? What's that?
[16:00]  Periapse Linden: I'll second Sai's plug for the groupies -- it's a great group
[16:00]  Periapse Linden: i'm sure sai has a link...
[16:00]  Darien Caldwell: lol
[16:01]  Periapse Linden: or just search the wiki for AWG
[16:01]  Phantom Ninetails: Alrighty
[16:01]  Periapse Linden: there's a big page either called AWG or Architecture Working Group
[16:01]  Rex Cronon: hmm, i wonder if a linden could make post on the main blog about awgroupies?
[16:01]  Saijanai Kuhn: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Architecture_Working_Group is the official collaboration btween LL, IBM, Open Sim, libsl, and so on, to make an open grid
[16:01]  Periapse Linden: Well, we're out of time. Any last questions?
[16:02]  Saijanai Kuhn: AW groupies is the in-world discussion group for hte AWG
[16:02]  Phantom Ninetails: Hmm, nifty
[16:02]  Periapse Linden: Rex -- didn't seem appropriate for the blog.
[16:02]  Darien Caldwell: i heard Mono and Havok 4 are merging now, what timeframe is expected for that to complete?
[16:02]  Saijanai Kuhn: Zha thinks we're too big already
[16:02]  Periapse Linden: Most residents wouldn't get it, or be interested. It's really for devs
[16:02]  Rex Cronon: i think u might be right periapse. would look like ll is pusing it
[16:03]  Periapse Linden: Darien -- we'll probably do the merge next week and put a havok4/mono version out here by the end of the week. It may take longer if the merge is tricky
[16:03]  Darien Caldwell: ok, thanks :)
[16:03]  Saijanai Kuhn: this is really cool news though. After things are stabilized, imagine monofeatures + H4 enancements
[16:03]  Saijanai Kuhn: enhancements
[16:03]  Periapse Linden: Yes, it's very exciting.
[16:04]  Periapse Linden: Havok4 has dropped the sim crash rate enormously
[16:04]  Rex Cronon: i wonder. could mono allow editing/creation of megapirms?
[16:04]  Rex Cronon: megaprims*
[16:04]  Darien Caldwell: i can believe it, it did wonders for my sim
[16:04]  Phantom Ninetails: I've noticed that too. The sandboxes I regular at rarely if ever crash anymore, used to be very frequent
[16:04]  Periapse Linden: that's an issue I don't feel comfortable with. I just dont' know where the size limits are placed.
[16:05]  Periapse Linden: Ok, thank you all for showing up today for this mostly-not-about-mono mono office hour
[16:05]  Phantom Ninetails: lol :>
[16:05]  Saijanai Kuhn: its a discussion for the H4 meeting I think. They recognize megaprims, but the support is still unofficial
[16:05]  Rex Cronon: interesting hour:)
[16:05]  paulie Femto: thx for trhe info. :)
[16:05]  Periapse Linden: Thanks. have a great weekend!
[16:05]  Darien Caldwell: thanks, I wish i could have gotten out of my RL job earlier, but such is life ;)
[16:05]  Saijanai Kuhn: This particular mono chat log wil have a link on the aAW Groupies page ;-)
[16:05]  Rex Cronon: u too
[16:05]  Darien Caldwell: bye :)
[16:05]  Phantom Ninetails: Sayonara
[16:05]  Saijanai Kuhn: Thanks periapse
[16:05]  Periapse Linden turns scripting back on
[16:05]  Rex Cronon: bye periapse
[16:06]  Entering god mode, level 200
[16:06]  Saijanai Kuhn: last shameless plug: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/AW_Groupies
[16:06]  Rex Cronon: bye everybody
[16:06]  Leaving god mode, level 200
[16:06]  Phantom Ninetails: Sayonara
[16:06]  Periapse Linden: Bye!