Will this impact LSL?

What would concern me the most is the impact Cory leaving LL will have on development of the LSL language...

Since Cory is the primary if not sole creator of LSL language. Will we see in the future LSL2 being developed? Or will LSL remain intact. And if it is to remain intact will it be futher developed to address some of the more annoying problems such as 16kb memory limits. Will we finally get more new functions coming out quicker, or will LSL development be a closed book?

What rights does Cory have to LSL? Is it owned 100% by LL as Cory was in the employ of LL durng its creation, or will there be future legal battles over use of LSL. that would impact every resident in SL.

I would think that LL owes us atleast the explaination how how this change will impact LSL, not just a one liner " LSL will remain intact" but a larger explaination of the future of LSL would be nice.

Development of LSL?? What development of LSL???

Unless LL totally dropped the ball, anything that Cory developed while in their employ is their property - that's pretty standard..

As for things like Mono, I don't think (but really don't know - somebody correct me if I'm wrong) Cory's been doing actual development for a while. Mono's the baby of Babbage now.

I would think that it depends on what road they'll take with Mono (which is supposidly coming along nicely).

If they only provide LSL as a language then we're stuck with it, if they provide other languages LSL should become largely irrelevant since it's really quite awful.

Couldn't resist the pun.

But there seem to be two ideas about Mono. One, that we, the residents, will actually be able to code directly in Mono. This one is false.

The other one, which is true, is that LSL will be compiled into Mono i-code (intermediate code, or byte code) that the simulators will be able to run dramatically faster than the current LSL runtime interpreters can.

In other words, YES, it'll be dramatically faster, but NO, you will not be given a new scripting environment in which to work. It'll still be LSL.

It won't _have to be_ LSL, though. If LL wanted to, they could support other languages. Not that that would be easy or quick - just that it's possible.

When I asked this Q in a meeting the answer was that LSL was going to be compiled and that was the totality of the first step. The plan after that is to support other languages.

And speaking out of my ass... that would be fairly easy to do. All they need to do is supply an assembly with al the SL functionality (though hopefully rewritten so that it is /actually/ event driven) and then you can use any language that mono has a compiler for.

It seems like it is actually far HARDER to have to write a custom compiler for LSL than just supply an assembly of SL access fcuntions. But of course they have no choice, they HAVE to support the "2.4 billion" lines of LSL already written...

While LSL isn't the greatest language, it's hardly the big problem, as I see it. Rather, I'd emphasize the lack of functionality exposed to scripting in any language. Really, all new features should have to first pass through a "scripting acceptance board" within LL that watchdogs and prevents release of such things as "Glow" without a corresponding scripting functionality. That particular example is just embarrassing (and will be corrected), but there's plenty of functionality that scripts *should* be able to access now, but instead we got the features first, and then script access got forgotten.

COOL!
Can I haz LOLCat scripting language?
http://lolcode.com/

Hmm, I just had a morbid thought....Corey walks away, smiling and waving goodbye to all of his Linden friends...they throw flowers in the air and blow kisses as he frolics away....


He gets in his taxi and gets on the phone with Google...."yesssss, my pretties, we will make a new virtual world...the new Google Earth, mauahahahahaha! Oh how I love stomping on people's dreams like cockroaches at the 8 Ball motel!"

I would be very surprised if his contract with LL doesn't prohibit him from working on a similar project for quite a while.

I sure hope they find the ability implement an alternative. The biggest problem i have with LSL (aside from the extreme limitations) is the fact that it's not used anywhere else. Languages, even hi level scripting ones, are no easy task, and with so many beautiful open-source languages available, theyll be hurting themselves as all their competitors develop their worlds. If one offers Lua, for example, many scripters native to gaming/3D will opt for that over learning a new script.

LSL has been a fun language to learn, but now i run into more limitations than anything else.

(imo.)


gaybot: Google's virtual world plans to be more reality based, so it probably wouldnt be a competitor. The hopes are that these virtual world environments will be compatible with one another. I also doubt Google would implement LSL. with all due respect.

Sorry, I totally missed the LSL in the thread title, lol.

Though I'm not a huge fan of it, I wouldn't mind too much if they kept LSL.. I'd rather have one language that was well supported and fit well with the way sims work than multiple languages that had so-so support (like I think we have with LSL now) and didn't fit well with the sim model..

That LSL has been pretty stagnant over the year I've been in SL - lack of language features like switch/case and lack of new llStuff functions - is one of my bigger gripes. If they started putting more into it, I'd be happier.

The idea of actually going ahead with trying to make an LSL2 has run through my head several times. I'm not sure existing scripting languages would be ideal for the purpose - they'd have many of the problems that LSL now has, such as people dropping multiple scripts into an item (with the resulting increase in lag), because LSL's event-based design makes it really hard to merge functionality and they don't want to figure it out.

The lack of exposed functionality is a bit of a problem too, but I think it's a case of having to find exactly what could and could not be used for griefing. I mean, the SL _building_ system already has some major techniques within it as easter eggs, and it seems scripting does too (just ask any weapon maker), and those should ideally be cleaned up first.

fell outta mah chair =)

The world is full of software engineers. If Isaac Newton had died at birth, we would still eventually have figured out how gravity works.

We may find that much more talented engineer who had previously been living in Cory's shadow now steps forward to fill the breach and make a better job of it.

Nicholaz comes to mind........