This be a petition to all SL residents

I Totally agree with you, Thank you.
LL Please FIX the current issues before adding any thing els, Please PLEASE focus your time and resources into fixing the current issues.

Thank you.

Oh jeez, not this crap again.

Are you saying that this is a lost cause? Are you implying that you like "little Inconveiniences"? Are you saying that it is perfect and the last two upgrades haven't been downgrades?

yes, SL need more bug fixes then shiny buttons that can lead to problems playing SL

Just a couple of things, I didnt see the poll voting thing at the top of the post.

When bug fixing (patching) complex routines in software such as SL, which by its very nature is ongoing beta and no bench marks to which draw from, coupled with the prolifercations of system permutations, it is inherent that for some systems, bugs will become more promimant for some than others. I read about problems that some are having, but don't share the same experiences, nor do they share the same issues I do.
/142/c7/179717/1.html

I understand it is frustrating and I don't fully agree with some of the strategies that LL have done, but can sympathise with trying to develop software systems that comply with every possible permutation. This can be seen everyday, whereby many web browsers do not render the same web page exactly the same, or the fact that Microsoft release 'security updates' on a daily basis, drivers are being constantly updated. SL as a platform is cutting edge and therefore we should all expect to some degree to be crash dummies. Submit a crash report, bug report and give LL the information they need to continue to update.

I imagine as the plan is to introduce the Havoc 2 engine, to replace the existing one, LL are no doubt spending a lot of time preparing the code for its implementation.

I agree, AWM. I don't think anyone realizes how much time and effort it takes to keep SL running. And improvements are coming, but there will always be ppl whining and complaining. I was frustrated too last night when I couldn't log on after the upgrade. But I just waited a while, watched some tv, tried again and I got in. I could've gone here and started a rant about it but why? I don't see the point.

Mandy C

Yes bug fixes are good but we also need new features, as I don't have any of these issues I am starting to get bored and wanting this world to advance, to go boldly where noone has gone before, to seek out & explore new galaxies........
Oops Kirk personality escaping..............

You get extra credit for being Grammitcally correct on that phrase.......

*rates Brenda for being the voice in her head*

Mandy C

ok, Mandy raises the point that not all software can be perfect, so we should accept what we have. I should point out that was the logic employed by GM throughout the 70's and 80's -- the cars they built were "good enuf". Then Toyota came along and where are they going now?

Linden face pressure on several fronts: pressure from users to improve the feature set, pressure to fix outstanding issues and/or quality of service, and pressure to create a viable business.

When you are in a fast-growing space like LL the temptation and the *easy* path is to add features as fast as possible -- this generates excitement and gets new users online. So what is half leave cause the system is buggy? More are signing up all the time. The problem is this approach is largely self defeating. What u are creating is a monster that no-one can control. And this is what has happened. Look at the bug issues and the way they are described: phrases like "something has happened on the database server" ... "we are losing inventory and are not sure why" ... "TP is broken for some users and is under investigation". This is the sign of a system that has been hacked together and is not fully understood even by those that maintain and control it.

Systems like this are sometimes called "spaghetti architecture" because they are such a tangled mess -- and they can rarely be fixed. In fact they always destroy the owners because eventually it becomes impossible to add new features without arbitrarily breaking others. Look at MS -- it took them TWICE as long as planned to get Vista out the door even with a stunning number of developers working on it, because large parts of the Windows code base are simply out of control -- every fix breaks something someplace else in the code base.

Dont get me wrong -- its very hard to architect good systems. But its also very hard to build reliable automobiles, but its been shown to be possible. Linden need to think hard about their approach to SL and where they are going with it.

I like SecondLife ... its a great concept with great potential ... but if LL keep on the current trajectory they will fail as a business and someone else will take their place in the sun. It's like Google -- they were not the first search engine but all the others were generating crap results from rather poor designs; Google built a solid engine that gave good results. Who won that race?

If Linden want to be Google and not Lycos they had better get their act together.

"Not sure why..." is just that... there's a glitch in the code. Lots of code. Oodles and gobs of it. With each new release, more code is generated. Have you ever tried debugging code? One little line that has been commented out for future use, then thousands of lines and several weeks of code later, you remember "Oh yeah, that is already in there!" then let 'er rip... totally forgetting that one little line was left commented. You stare for hours and hours trying to debug, etc etc.
*snip edit* Not to mention there's more than just the one code monkey. */snip*
I'm sure LL has a much nicer coding system than our in-world devices, and I wouldn't touch code with a 10m pole, but keep in mind, they don't fully re-write EVERYTHING with every patch, and dependancies and stuff get borked occasionally. Grit your teeth and smile, it will get better... it always does.
We grow together.

Ive been debugging code since i was 12 ... this isnt an issue of bugs .. its an issue of priority and regression. SL seem to prioritize feature set additions over stability.

And my friends list is still broken ... before the upgrade it worked. Thats a regression. Its also a very major one. Why did it slip thru? Bad testing possibly but more likely because it was not observer during testing.

Large badly architected software systems have a tendency to become chaotic (in the mathematical sense) ... they are literally impossible to stabilize in behavior since all changes have a potentially global impact and the extent of that impact is difficult to predict. So some minor code change in one module has bizarre unexpected effects elsewhere.

Well architected systems exhibit high stability ... the impact and potential scope of changes are much better understood. This leads in general to lower maintenance and development costs, better performance and faster feature set enhancements. When was the last time Google was down? Or gave screwy results?

Clearly SL is still in the former camp, it needs to be in the latter camp if it to survive.

Have you tried a clear cache and relog? My friend list is working beautifully!

I've cleared my cashe, reloged, I've done everything. The only place where I dont crash is my SL home. I can't go anyplace else without crashing immediatly.

Tis true. Sl slams in features that most of the time seem like they shouold take a VERY FAR back seat to stability and performance***...and what about that new engine that had been promoised so long ago?....That we all voted for as a priority... **** We have streaming video in sl, that people are rarely using. That caused ass loads of problems. along with the speach bubbles, that I dont know of anyone using, probably some do.

I think things get done on a what's easiest to do at the time priority.

Edit: Cant manage to stay logged in at the moment either.

I watch my tv all the time while I'm monitoring my shop

lol@Cheeseboat :|

I clear my cache everytime I run SL, after all, that's what -purge is supposed to do.
Does my friends list work? No.

Linden labs needs to STOP trying to add as many new features, and get to work right for as many computers as possible, and once all of those major bugs, such as crashes are fixed then they can work on those new features, but until then, they need to FIX the problems they already have, instead of adding new features that will add new problems.

He/She is implying that this is not a new idea, that it's been proposed over and over for at least 3 years, LL even agreed to it once, and it mattered not a bit. Things went on as usual. I suppose you could say that it at least seems like a lost cause, but good luck to you.

What I've seen and been told of LL's inner workings is roughly this: Internally devs and possibly others post to a list of features and fixes that need doing. Dev's pick and choose what they would like to work on from this list. They are required to present what they've accomplished at regular intervals. The key point in that is that they choose what to work on. If nobody feels up to the task, it doesn't get implemented. This management style is something that they believe in very deeply.

With that in mind, petitioning LL to do some things before others isn't going to get very far. The people who hear you aren't the ones who really decide what gets done.

I really do wish you good luck though. Maybe knowing the above you can think of a more effective approach.

Easy fix - associate the developer's name publically with the fix. Then, when a major pain problem gets fixed, we'll know which Linden's our new hero! Surely the gratitude of a million residents would be sufficient motivation!

I hear you on that one. I can spend a good 20-30 min at my home before I completely freeze up and have to reboot my entire system. Away from home, this happens within 5 minutes

heh, and when the fix doesn't quite work as planned? oh I know, if they have confidence in their patch they'll stand behind it. On something as complex as SL though that doesn't work. Even the best laid plans can fail, and the blow back from that will be worse than all the positive reenforcement they might get.

Yeah........ well, I just crashed over 30 times in the last 45 mins
PLEASE!!! Fix it to pre 1.4