Linden Labs Has me Baffled: Inept or Undisclosed Agenda?

Oh god I can just imagine !

This wasn't a problem when he sat in his office and let Robin run the business as a professional venture. Things were moving at a steady clip for a while. Then people started investing in the project and it all slowed to a confused crawl.

It's heartbreaking to see all you people wake up and smell the frakin coffee. I was actually more comfortable about the future when you all poopooed such trashy assessments of SL's future from "boring naysayers" and continued living in your One Project ~ One Community ~ One Grid Forever dream world. Jarod says that he hates that we right all along.

Seriously though, I've no doubt that LL believe that the Land Store will make them money. Surely to Heaven they've based the system on the documented needs of potential customers that far outstrip the investments of current stakeholders. Oh now Jarod's saying that the project is still not profitable because it's outgrown their capabilities at every turn. Yeah well whatever. Where's that competition again?

I have thought for some time now that they may have another project in the works, because Philip has been acting a lot like Will Wright did regarding TSO after a while, and one reason was Will had pretty much finished with TSO and was into robotics.

What other game did those 50 people go to?

Whatever this script thing turns out to be, I’m just glad I haven't finished my new furniture set yet, with all the sit positions, till I see what this means for them.

Some months ago, I learned that SL employees work on whatever catches their eye (except when they are assigned to bugs) - or at least, that this happens a lot - and I have attributed everything that doesn't make sense since to that.

coco

You know, I kind of hope they do have another project in the works. Something with a truly flexible virtual environment creator.

Sadly I've gotten to the point where I would welcome a complete wipe of the world if they would install a stable, integrated (no spaghetti code), Havoc 3 , SL 2.0. Yes, I would be willing to completely redo all our products, rebuild our sim, etc.

I guess that's one way to get my inventory under control.

Yo, tell dat bitch to call me already! And check your email!

I'm just glad they got this fixed - or should I say, un-fucked - before the release. While I agree Linden Lab needs to give more time and thought to what they release, and how they release it, let's consider these points as well (pointed at no one in particular):

(1) Several decisions considered to be bad by the majority of the community have been reversed, or removed before the zero hour.

(2) Many outcries from the public have changed things for the better (removing rate whoring bonuses, abuse of dwell for DIs, full bright, P2P TP... although i'm still waiting on privacy controls <grin>

(3) Many promises for long awaited features were made when we had less than 30,000 residents (that was less than a year ago). The huge boom in accounts created since then (120,000 in under a year) has made it necessary to drop new feature projects in lieu of bux fixing and scalability (the new simulator back end being a huge one, and permission are much more solid). This point has been repeated at many town halls. What good would new features do if no one could access the grid?

(4) People tend to forget how much things have improved. Memories are short on the good, long on the bad: /108/52/86249/1.html

I hear many people saying, "Just wait for a competitor to show up and eat them alive." and things of that nature. Well, There and ActiveWorlds are out there, and I don't see many things popping up. Maybe creating something on this massive a scale isn't as easy as we all think, and maybe it can't be done with a traditional business model and practices. I don't know, but I'm not about to take the risk to find out, either!

Regards,

-Flip

Click the link at the bottom of my sig. The bullet points are so apt to Linden Lab, from where I'm standing, it's unreal. Maybe it's a new management style?

I think many of you are being kind of hypocritical here.

On the one hand you say "fix the thing," and that you wouldn't mind starting all over in a new world or wiping this world and staying here, on the other hand everyone whines and cries when a single thing is changed that affects their precious objects.

I think the fact that LL back down at the zero hour on significant improvements as noted by Flip is a *bad* thing and more indicative of the bad management that you are all talking about than staying the course would have been. What kind of company gets all wishy-washy at the last minute just cause a lot of whiners cry about an update?

The change in the scripting behaviour was a change to make it more rational and would not have broken a single "correctly written script" as far as I was able to make out from reading both threads in detail.

What? Vodoo design? Trickle down business model?

Right Flip - you don't know - but smart not to take the risk.

If they would just fix the dang bugs in building in large scale.. there wouldn't be any risk!!!!

apparently they roll dice to make major decisions

Well she's talking about 'features' that were tacked onto the list 2 days ago. Things that weren't mentioned in any of the release notes. IE: the 'oh and by the way.... we're changing the fundemental way in which permissions are released with this update on Wednesday'

If something isn't mentioned in ANY of the preview notes that has absolulety NOTHING to do with ANY of the features added - there is no way to know if every single thing in the world is going to work.

Case in point here is that she's talking about something that myself and Ferran created - both of us HAD gone to the preview grid to test things that may have been affected. This particular item we didn't - because there was absolutely no indication that anything to do with it had changed.

So - shove your smug reply up your arse.

and of course karens update which was AFTER that - which I have in the original thread - boldified as well.. look that one up - where it states the changes they ACTUALLY made were to camera --- and to keep the animation release on stand.

I'm baffled too.. why lazy ass people were being rewarded for making shoddy scripts.

If you want to tell Siggy, who is one of the cleanest, methodical, test-to-destruction, script writers I know; and, who specifically checked with LL on the particular behavior before using it, that his script was not correctly written, then I plan to stand at least 4 states away from you.

I am self-editing the rest of my opinion because I have yet to get a warning on these boards and I see no reason to start over your post.

I guess it's because a huge cross-section of LSL scripters are horrible coders. LL seems content to hand out memberships to anyone who will pay attention, while systematically nerfing bug-free and streamlined code.

LL has shown it's true colors here. Quality means nothing and volume prevails. The bean counters have prevailed.

It's about the money.

I passed the e-mail on to her. She's been up some odd hours lately. Your best bet is to call her.

Hopefully Philip's Town Hall tomorrow can serve to answer some of these questions. I've seen improvement in certain areas of LL's development management structure (like Karen's weekly updates, and better communication) but there's still room for a lot more improvement. Hopefully there is some kind of plan in place that can be shared.

Regards,

-Flip

Unless we actually worked there, we can't know how difficult it is to develop Second Life.

With that said, is it really so hard to believe that rewriting the underpinnings of an ever-evolving, complex, multi-user created world might just be a tad difficult and time-consuming for business of only 30 to 40 people (whom only part are developers)?

They shouldn't actually of introduced it so close to zero hour, that's kind of the point many have been making. In addition it was far from the best implementation of something that I can see why they would want to do. That's not the action of a company that pays care and attention to the creators of it's world.

Interestingly, my skates were affected by this (when dropped, rather than detached to inventory, so nothing major - annoying, as I didn't think was the best way for them to implement it and it was, as has pretty much been admitted by a Linden, a quick cludge) but I've been thinking about why I'd been affected, what had led me to the point of writing the code in such a way as to be affected. In hindsight it seems like a stupid mistake to make, but hindsight is a wonderful thing!

When I first started working with animations in SL (before custom anims were around, but the method was exactly the same) I didn't know about the Wiki (it wasn't something "included" in the SL web site, for starters) and I learnt from a combination of:

1. The lsl_guide.html that's in the SL installation directory. I actually used this a heck of a lot for the first year or so I was around - I just wasn't aware of the Wiki. Anybody who's worked from this knows it's very, very basic and not very clear.
2. The linden made objects that you could pull apart, like the Popgun for instance.
3. Scripts that people I'd met shared.

I've been looking through all that and have found the following:

1. There's no mention of checking perms before calling llStopAnimation in the lsl_guide.html
2. Have a look at the popgun attach() function - guess what? Yup, it doesn't check the permission before stopping animations. it only actually checks that the permission was originally granted through the run_time_permissions() call - it doesn't make sure it's still granted with a direct call to llGetPermissions() when it tries to stop animations.
3. A very well known anim script modded by a very well known person doesn't do it. In fact the person who made the anim script (not the person who modded it) was kind enough to give me another script way back when for doing animations, not a great amount of time after I'd first started SL - and yup, that doesn't do it either.

I've learnt from all these things, and now I can understand how I got affected by this. Especially as, when I first started, the vast amount of my learning came from Linden words and Linden objects - you kind of expect that to be correct. I've learnt over time that that's a silly thing to believe though, but some things slip through the gaps.

I always use the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I'd never had a problem with detaching and so, I'd never actually revisted that code and it's pretty much the same code now as I've always used. In over 18 months (I think) of making the skates, I've never had a problem with the attach() code and it was organised as the Lindens show in their example objects.

So I can understand why my code is the way it is. It cleans up animations after itself (along with other stuff) but it doesn't check it still has perms, basically because how I learnt never showed that I should and it had never given me a problem.

The Lindens knew this was going to cause issues (well, their own stuff is guilty of it as well) but they still initially decided to do the quick cludge fix, rather than doing it properly or limiting the change to address the reason they were doing it - the follow cam permission (which is what they have now done, I believe). And they did it so close to the full release going live. That's not acceptable.

Change happens, things you took for granted change, that's understandable. What isn't is the way Linden Lab manage it, and that's the larger issue here.

Anyway, there's my explanation

i never leave home without my 4, 6, 8, 12 and 20 sided dice

I even have a 3 sided dice (its actually six sided with 1 2 and 3 repeated) and a coin for those 1 or the other decisions

fuck personal responsibility

doh!!!

I belong in off topic

You are mistaken.

Behavior laid down that I specifically asked about when sittargets were introduced:

'When I stand up my anim continues - is this a bug?'
'No this is correct behavior - you will animate until permissions are relinquished'

I have a correctly written script - it unseats you - then animates you.

Premissions are checked and granted - it unseats you - applies force - permissions are revoked by the new behavior - when you start the anim it spams and doesn't run the animation.

It is correctly written - it checks before it animates - it animates you after an unseat - correct and proper behavior according not only to LL, but to the designer of LSL.

The new functionality not only breaks it, but causes permissions spam.


If the world was wiped to start anew I would do it.
But that is a different point entirely.

Breaking something - in this case permissions being granted and revoked - at the 11th hour with no warning, and for what? Lets look at that point:

A carpet removal to make it easier to remove Camera permissions.

Something that was later proven that they could have done seperately to begin with.

A 'quick and dirty answer' to something that may have been used to grief.

A quick and dirty fix that changes a fundemental way that permissions are revoked. One that breaks scripts written to prevent spam while stopping spam in those that never were.
A reward to the quick and dirty and a slap in the face to the methodical.

I beg to differ with your conclusions.

I've gone on and one about why the "fix" here was irrational on other threads, so I won't do so again, but basically, Dianne, you're wrong. It's a basic change in the behaviour of events. I'll argue that til I'm blue in the face.

Having said that: it was fixed (or at least I assume so, I won't be able to tell until tomorrow) and within days. It was a pretty serious error to make, and the attempted pretence that it was actually okay if they just changed the error to an icon was a bit shabby, but it got fixed. I'm not going to attack LL for that. Their developers aren't as embedded as actual residents after all, they don't necessarily know these things untill they're informed.

The wider issues, though, the preference of landholder and landrenter rights over other features, I'm certainly not keen on. The thing is, in my estimation, is that while you CAN make money from being a content provider, you're not going to make a lot. The real money is made by the land speculators. And that's not some sort of law of nature, it's due to decisions made by LL. There is no actual requirement that one can make huge amounts of money dealing in land, it's utterly arbitrary.

Andrew: Hey Philip, this car has a flat tire.
Philip: Jack up the rear end and start using high-test fuel.

My point was mostly about the hypocrisy, not the particular instance of the scripting debacle, and I agree completely that LL management and planning (or lack of management and planning) is the main problem.

I just think some people here are basically more into being a cranky-pants than they are constructive or even intelligent critique-ers, and I am not necessarily talking about the OP (I don't even know her), I am talking about forum-ites in general.

My take on the scripting thing was that even though it was a given that you didn't need to do it up until this point, it's still a normal thing to do to check for permissions every time you need them, and scripts that actually did that would not fail under the new regime (as far as my reading and understanding of the threads went). Apologies if that's wrong, but it doesn't change my point about the attitudes much if it is anyway.

The motivation for my comments was just the realisation that if we are to get any of the new stuff that every one keeps complaining about then changes will have to be introduced that will break things on a scale that makes the scripting change look like nothing at all.

Just the other day a Linden suggested tossing "joints" which every cool programmer I ever ran into has said suck, don't work, and are basically useless so don't use them. When the suggestion was made though, all these people chime in with their own personal "It will break my thingie, so do't get rid of it!" some even suggested LL was incompetent, stupid etc. for even *thinking* of getting rid of the thing.

If they can't even pare off an outdated, never worked, piece-of-poo like joints from the utility of the main program, how can they ever move forward at all?

So as a completely disinterested "outside" observer, *some* of the behaviour of *some* the cool kids on the forum seems pretty sucky and babyish to me sometimes. That was probably my whole point right there.

I don't script so I have nothing invested either way.
My opinion only, yours may vary.

PS - For the record Siggy, you are one of the few people that I have *never* detected any kind of hypocritical attitude from ever. I dont always agree with you, but you always say what you mean, mean what you say, you don't cry over spilt milk and you are entirely consistent IMO. So even though we disagree about the script thing, I wasn't talking about you.