Preview Grid = Safe scripting area?

I am looking for a safe place to test a script, that although should be fine, it has the potential to become a grey-goo attack since it uses the unsafe form of replication.
This would be similar to the replicating fish that eat each other.

I am thinking of going to the preview grid to test it. I know the preview grid gets wiped regularly and I’ll have to cut and paste the final script to notepad, but I’m wondering what is LL’s policy as far as crashing the preview grid?

I know someone that was testing a script for project similar to mine and it got away from him.
LL deleted ALL of his in-world scripted items that he owned.

Earlier I used a ”no-outside script” piece of land to safely assemble and disassemble parts, but real testing is always needed. I had to use someone elses land since I can’t set “No-scripts at all” on my own land like LL can.

I’m also worried about just using a sandbox for projects like this since even if it’s contained to that sim it still would put more load on the asset server.

I was going to post this in the preview forum, however I think a general disusion on safe areas to test scripts is a better topic.

Some thoughts
1. Unless the script has the WarpSetpos or becomes physical it can’t cross a 12 m strip of “No-outside script” land
2. Rezing has a 10m limit so it can’t rez across the barrier either.
3. Can the warpSetPos be used to jump void space?

Is there any way for you to code a counter of some kind into it? Either as a parameter passed from object to object (incremented each time) or as a message of some kind? Any kind of fail-safe built into the scripts would be invaluable, for example a listener that upon reading the message "DIE" will destroy itself and pass the message on.

This way if you are testing and it goes wrong, the objects either stop rezzing if the counter is above 1000, or you can shout "DIE" and they'll be destroyed, for the second option, put a decent delay into them.

Just any fail-safe that doesn't require you to modify your code too much will do, that way when you remove it you should be guaranteed that the behaviour you saw will continue without the fail-safe.

Also, I believe there's now a grey-goo "fence" or something in effect, so if you're rezzing in a way that it will pick up if you go out of control you might not have to worry, so long as ordinary behaviour doesn't get affected anyway.

But yeah, any complicated scripting I usually do on the preview grid, because it's quite, and if you make a big mess it isn't overly critical, since rolling back a preview sim isn't as big a deal as a main grid one.

The Script has numourous built in limits.
1. It does nothing until the master, non replicating, controler tells it where it's limits are.
2. It's not allowed to cross sim boundrys on rez or move
3. It can only replicate after it soaks up a day of daytime sun or eats several other objects.

As a programer in RL, that also writes windows device drivers, I tend to be a bit paranoid.

Retorical: "Now how did I corupt the File system this time?"

Edit:
I was thinking of making a wiki page, but I found some nice pages.

The only thing missing is a comment on the posibility of using the prevew grid for testing and a easier to find page.

http://secondlife.com/badgeo/wakka.php?wakka=SelfReplication

Edit again:
I figured out how to make it useing "Safe replication"
I'll have a phantom Rezzer prim jump to the location using WarpPos when an object says it can replicate.

Any kind of user-override DIE or stop function (as well as using the preview grid) is your best bet. I know I had something I coded that I thought would work properly given the auto-return of hte land I was working with and still managed to have a VERY slow "grey goo" (it doubled every 4 or 5 minutes, which made it easy to clean up).

When your project is done and working, I'd love to see it in action.