AI Conference

At a recent conference about artificial intelligence and massive grid systems, Second Life was brought up repeatedly as a perfect example of precisely how *not* to code complex grid applications. A few jokes were made.

Maybe if one of your developers could just read a quick article on how to write patches? It would be pretty nice to be able to download a 800kb change instead of a brand new 27mb lump of binaries every time. Just to start.

Do you have any links to any? info on this . It might make for entertaining reading

Nope, I was actually there. But so were a few Lindens, or so it seemed. It's probably not the best idea in the world to out them, as they were nodding their heads vigorously and bitching heartily along with the rest of us.

Along with learning how to write patches, it would be nice if I didn't have to feel the need to humiliate LL en masse by demonstrating an authentication server at the next conference that can authenticate 1000 logins per second. For 2,500 USD in hardware, and $0 USD in software.

Fix your authentication, Lindens. No excuse.

As a side issue is there a link to conference web site, conference papers etc?

The method of patching code that you mention would be OS dependant, by default Windows XP will not allow whole files to only have partial code alterations. Its a all or nothing deal.

Hmmm...I've patched XP binaries many times, as well as linux and OSX binaries. It's really not a big deal. In the gaming world, for XP, games that update via patches or patch clusters include: Everquest and Everquest 2, WoW, Oblivion, F.E.A.R...the list is quite long.

I didnt say you couldn't do it, I said by default. For the average user, that maybe beyond their capabilities. I used to modify printer drivers.. but now I have better things to do lol...

No, I mean its really very trivial (in fact, more than one Microsoft development environment has this capability, as well as at least two third party environments I can think of) to encapsulate a patch into a binary executable installer. The user downloads the patch, double clicks on it, and it does everything by itself. It would be actually easier than SL's current upgrade method, which is:

1. be notified that your version sucks (no shit) and theres a new version, and you cant connect until you install it
2. download 30+ megabytes of the new version
3. install the new version on top of the old version, hope it gets to the same place and doesnt screw up any of your menu items or links (this happened in the last two updates)
4. repeat the next day

With the little encapsulated patch method, the client could download the patch and install it all by itself with a few very well understood and oft used tricks in the scene---like "hey, where you runnin' from?" "oh alright, I'll install there then", etc.

The template for this system has already been written hundreds of times, but if I were to do it anew, without stealing anyone else's code, I could create one in about half a day.

And I'm an idiot.

Oh be quiet. I don't CARE that I have to redownload the whole thing over and over.

Why?

Because it's only 30 F*ing megabytes!

WoW hasn't had a patch that small in....almost forever. I asked some WoW players. They COULD NOT REMEMBER the last time a patch was under 100 MB.

I mean seriously people, the client is so freaking small that it takes less time to download and install than it does to complain on the forums that it's not a 20 KB patch.

Thats a very broad statement and stinks of 'I have a super dooper connection and don't care about the rest of the world' well for your information, not everyone has a good connection.. so go and troll some place else if you have nothing 'useful' to add.