So...

Just out of curiosity, what's the tenative "official" plan of 1.7?

What features/bugfixes/things should we plan on testing?

LF

I sent Kelly a flurry of LSL feature requests. Here is one of them

integer llGetInventoryType(string item)
It would return the INVENTORY_* flag. And wouldn't give an error message if the item didn't exist. If it didn't exist it would return INVENTORY_ALL or some other negative constant.

I heard back from Kelly on this one, high probability of it being in 1.7

Specifically, is Havoc 2 still planned to be a part?

I have an object with physics that I created that can consistently crash a sim, so I'll be happy to put Havoc 2 through the wringer.

- Ace

^ I bet a lot of that will happen, and I'm looking forward to riding the uberbumpercars of nu-SL.

I'm looking forward to stress testing llSetPrimitiveParams for prim torture

^YOU ARE DA MAN! Specialty!

Whatever it may mean, there's an open position for QA Manager on the LL employment page. I'm wondering how the hiring of this manager will affect 1.7's release date.

Regardless, Cory's Town Hall meeting minutes would be a great place to start looking for features; he said it would be 3-4 months to 1.7's release... I'm assuming this means 2-3 months until preview is up.

I bet all you Linden's hate me but pretty please XML-RPC for 1.7 preview?

I don't need email but I think it would be good.

1.7 will bring Havok2. What else could you possibly want?

The full Havok2 featureset, of course. But we won't get that. We won't even get 10% of that.

Unless Andrew has a few tricks up his sleeve.

LF

If I read Jeska correctly on the "sticky", this is not a "feature suggestions forum" but more a place to organize people for doing the testing together.

I'm usually willing to go to the Preview grid and do some individual testing & reporting. However, "combined organized testing" sounds like a pretty good idea to me. The only thing I'm always sorry is that all things created in the Preview aren't easily "ported" to the main grid - except for scripts & notecards which can easily copy & paste'd.

So imagine this idea - you'd have a group of people designing something new, and willing to "expend" 1 month of their time (the usual time the Preview is up... except for 1.5... but that was another story ) to do something together. Hmm, just as an example, since we're supposed to have Havok 2, say, building a Mad Max car race, where you can shoot at other vehicles and break them apart or something Now this would take hours and hours of testing & debugging for the SL users, uncovering a whole range of bugs/bad implementations, and really "putting the grid under stress". The problem is, after all this work has been done, it gets "deleted" and you have to start from scratch...

Yes, I'm aware that you can get scripts to read all your prim settings and send you an email with all the details, so that you can reconstruct them later on the "main grid". But this is a bit too cumbersome at the moment, IMHO.

Perhaps LL could give a hand with "porting" things from one grid to another...

This is just a suggestion

That is perhaps a great idea, but if LL did that for the one project, they would have people complaining saying 'you ported that over for them, but u won't port my house or clothes that i bought'. the preview grid is kinda like a big sandbox... being able to make something in preview and transfer it to main grid would be unfair in a way.

wonder if a Linden will reply to this topic? they've given us a little bit of info and now we're just speculating

Hi everyone, I'm sorry that it has taken me so long to get to these threads. I hope that am able to address some of the questions that you've raised thus far, here.

I should be able to do this fully after today's meeting on preview 1.7, which will be held in the preview grid at 3:00 p.m. PST.

I'd be delighted to help test, and I do have professional experience in QA testing. However, I do think we need some specific assistance from LL to make this organized testing possible:

1 - List of bugs fixed

2 - List of existing features from previous releases so we can test for regression (introduction of new bugs in existing functionality) - existing use cases or test scripts would be good, but if you honestly don't have them, give us a place to record the ones we develop, so they can be used in the future

3 - Documentation on new features (and their intended behavior), even if it's very rough (and again, use cases or test scripts if they exist)

4 - Access to bug list/tracking tool so we don't duplicate bugs when we file them - if this allows us to review bugs supposedly fixed in earlier releases, we can also note regression and ask for a bug to re-open

5 - A way to record our testing in the bug/feature list so others can see what's been tested and how it's been tested, so we can spread our effort out as much as possible

6 - As Gwyneth suggested, a way to keep objects created in the preview grid when 1.7 releases -- this should be available for everyone. Create a special "Preview Grid" folder in everyone's inventory, and transfer over what people put in it to their main account when the new release goes live. People will need to save copies of what they want to keep.

7 - All the new and existing functionality needs to be enabled -- and this needs to include things like XML-RPC -- or we can't test everything and something in that untestable area is bound to break.

8 - In-grid meetings are nice, but hard to schedule. Please don't depend on synchronous forms of communication for this effort, or you're likely to lose everyone outside your own timezone and many in it.

9 - Some kind of cheap recognition. I will personally devote hours and hours of time at no charge to testing this stuff, to help make this release the best ever, but it would be nice to get a t-shirt (size SMALL please) or a mousepad or mug or special hat to wear in SL or *something.*

Thanks,

neko

Yes, Alan, you're right. People would complain that the residents who helped out LL with the Preview (silly volunteers that spend their in-world time doing hard work by bug testing instead of being on the grid and enjoying themselves) were "privileged" to get some of their objects transfered to the grid BEFORE the rest, and have an unfair advantage by selling them before the competition - who, for several reasons, couldn't care less about bug testing anyway, let the silly fools who volunteer waste their time... - is able to understand the new functions and sell items of their own.

Hmm. The way most of the community in SL thinks, there would certainly be lots and lots of people complaining about "favouritism". I'll drop my suggestion for now. The talented residents who know how to use "prim copy & paste scripts" will be able to pull out their objects anyway...

Yes, Alan, you're right. People would complain that the residents who helped out LL with the Preview (silly volunteers that spend their in-world time doing hard work by bug testing instead of being on the grid and enjoying themselves) were "privileged" to get some of their objects transfered to the grid BEFORE the rest, and have an unfair advantage by selling them before the competition - who, for several reasons, couldn't care less about bug testing anyway, let the silly fools who volunteer waste their time... - is able to understand the new functions and sell items of their own.

Hmm. The way most of the community in SL thinks, there would certainly be lots and lots of people complaining about "favouritism". I'll drop my suggestion for now. The talented residents who know how to use "prim copy & paste scripts" will be able to pull out their objects anyway...

On the contrary, I think your request is important, Gwyneth. And I see no reason this shouldn't be available to *anyone* who actually goes to the Preview grid and experiments. As I noted above, this could be implemented by creating a special folder in all the Preview accounts which would be used to transfer content back to the main grid after release of the new version -- people would just need to be sure to take a copy and put it in this folder before the end of Preview. In fact, this could be a powerful incentive to get people to actually get in and test during Preview, whether as part of a coordinated effort or not.

The more testers and testing that goes on, the better. If someone creates something really cool in the Preview grid and lots of people come to see it and try it out, that would be terrific for testing. And anyone who invests a lot of effort should be able to keep their work.

The exception is L$, of course. If you make something during Preview and give out copies, whether you "sell" them or just give them away, you're not going to actually keep any L$ you gained during that period. Again, I think this is good. People who come "buy" your stuff get a chance to try new products for free, which is compensation for being willing to play in an unstable environment -- and the products may still be buggy, too. People who create things in Preview should have the chance to sell them later, though, for real L$, once the new version releases and the contents of the special folder are transferred back.

Sure, some normally expensive items may be transferred back to the main grid without having to be paid for. If you don't want to give away such items, don't put them for sale during Preview. Lindens can faciliate this by only copying sandboxes, welcome area, etc. into the Preview grid, and perhaps islands available to the public that their owners would like to share the contents of.

neko

I think the best solution to stress testing Sl is a combination of prioritised Eyeballs and Eyebots testing ... ie: focused bug testing plus large scale automated stress and function testing, through all sims at min to max agent load.

I don't know what system LL is using now but it's obvious to me it ain't working on a number of levels. If they don't have some sort of automated system their new QA manager better develop one quick smart...and relying on unpaid "volunteers" is not a long term healthy solution to developing a scalable product for 1 million + users.

My personal crash record for around 2 months online is >100 crashes...LL make Microsoft look like amoochers in this regard. In my 20+ years of computing I have never met a system with such great highs and such great lows. You will NEVER eliminate all the bugs before a release - nuff said, but you need a better system to at least catch the majority of them...not rely on your PAYING customers to find them for you.

We all know this is a complex system (ref: http://www.gamasutra.com/resource_guide/20030916/rosedale_pfv.htm - thanks neko), but like any computer system it's the testing which defines the products success if you want to "cross the chasm" from the early adopters to the mass market.
(er...ok, maybe the marketing

I believe strongly in the future potential of SL as the new web, but unless an appropriate solution to testing this system through a solid release system is implemented I suspect it may crash under its own ambition.

LL is obviously aware of this, through their recent job postings...I hope they devote the appropriate resources to it.

my 0.23 cents

PS: /142/b6/45766/1.html

Good points, Komuso. A combination of automated, paid, and customer testing is best. (Customers come up with ways to break the system that no one in-house would think of, but they should not be the first line of defense.) See my post about using scriptable avatars for testing in a parallel thread.

neko

Hi - I'll post more in this thread soon, when I have the time...but I did want to address any notions that are floating about out there regarding people being excluded from Preview testing in 1.6 or for the 1.7 group.

In Preview 1.6, anyone was welcome, and we placed notices in the forums & in the MOTD, for quite some time. I also went in several times per week to the main grid and IM'd the entire grid letting people know that they could come and test. Many residents came and tested, and around 100 ran test scripts and / or filed bugs. Many others also came and helped others test, as well as helping during critical periods of load and stress testing. Others simply came and tried out QuickTime, some even just came to hang out. Everyone was, and is, welcome.

The only folks who were excluded were the newest of residents, as our DB sync to the preview grid didn't include them from the point of the update, onward. By the end of Preview 1.6, we had missed about 6 weeks worth of newcomers. The same will apply with 1.7. 1.7 will be updated around the time we hit beta if not sooner so that the newest residents may also participate. There is no way to maintain a current sync with the main grid so that the newest residents can come in after the sync. It's a different grid.

There is an open door for all to participate - I value everyone's opinions and contributions.

I hope that this helps dissuade any idea that 1.6 or 1.7 are parties held solely for the elite.

As well, anyone may join the " -Preview 1.7-" group on the main grid, it has been open enrollment from the beginning

All my best,
Vektor