My day job primarily consists of programming software, databases, and websites. I use products that deal with version control in test environments before I release the code in a live environment. With the Linden Scripting Language and Second Life, this concept is pretty much out the window. Anything that is scripted is immediately live. You can’t undo your changes unless you keep a separate copy of each version of your file.
While I was looking at some of the visitors of my blog through MyBlogLog, I noticed Melissa Yeuxduox had a profile picture of a second life avatar. I followed her link and found that she had a blog with a title in Spanish, Livin’ La Vida Segunda (Livin’ The Second Life).
The title of the first article caught my attention – “A must-read for scripters“. She mentioned a tutorial on Tiessa Montgolfier’s blog, All Things Tiessa. It mentioned how to access LSL code anywhere, handle version control, and an environment supporting auto-completion with folding.
I followed the link through to A Bimbo’s Guide To A Portable LSL Scripting Environment. There were step-by-step instructions for downloading and setting up an environment using the Java Developer Kit, Eclipse, Byron Star, and Google Code Hosting.
I ran through a few differences as the tutorial was written for a mac. I was able to get through and had my own little LSL code project setup on Google Code. I prefer a development IDE that I am familiar with such as Visual Studio.Net. I wonder if a plugin exists for LSL syntax highlighting as well as integrating with Subversion, or a CVS server. I only know of its support for Micorosoft version control such as Visual SourceSafe and Team Foundation Server out of the box. (I found one called AnkhSVN) I imagine that I could setup my own reposatory at home to get around the open-source issues, but then I would have to find a way to expose the CVS server to the internet when I am away from home.
So now I have version control outside of Second Life servers. How about code execution? I should look into this more. I found something called an LSL Editor that I may be able to use for this. I also need to come up with a way to save prim information into my project. It needs to be easily exported to multiple grids once the lindens release their version of an open sim platform or split up into multiple grids.
February 11, 2008 at 10:29 am |
This is something I’ve been looking for as well, as a complete package.
I have used ByronStar’s plugin for Eclipse for quite a while now, and its easy tie-in to SVN is great. (We have some stuff hosted on DreamHost which has SVN as part of the hosting plan). I have been meaning to give LSLEditor a try, and he has mentioned future SVN implementation.
I have heard some other people mention LSLint (or something like that) as a highlighter for other programs, so I wonder if it would work with VS. I have been too busy writing code to try out some different implementations, so please post what you find ’cause I’d sure like to hear how it goes!
Saving Prim information would be another nice thing. I’ve seen your script tool that pumps out some code to rebuild the prim properties, but that might be a pain if you have lots of prims to put it into like a large linked set.
If you find a solution for that, I’d like to know too, but I’m guessing it will involve a client viewer mod in order to work well.
February 11, 2008 at 10:49 pm |
For the script solution, there might be a way to have the script pass itself to each linked prim so eventually I could create a rezzer of sorts. But that doesn’t include all the other items that need to be placed in different prims such as scripts once the object is built up.
LSLEditor is ok, but it lacks the ability to work with linked objects. Any object within an object is simply just counted as inventory. The objects have ID’s for their properties, but there is no other information such as texture, shape, color, light, etc. It is very quick to run through scripts that essentially take a long time on the grid. It would be helpful to slow it down to match the iterations per second as you see with sims on the grid.
February 12, 2008 at 10:35 am |
Well, you can give the scripts as inventory, but they won’t run unless you give them with llRemoteLoadScriptPin. You can’t use that until you have a script in that prim run and set the pin.
I’ve run into this problem before, and kept wishing there was a way to at least load scripts in a running mode if the permissions worked out alright.
If you do load them with llGiveInventory, you could use the client menu with ‘Set all scripts to running” and that might work, but it wouldn’t be automatic.
That’s interesting about LSLEditor, though. To be honest, I haven’t even installed it so I don’t know any of its faults or features first hand. Until I see SVN access, I’ll just write in Eclipse and test inworld. I do too much copy-paste already