Project Sansar's Scripting Language will be C#, what do you think about that?

[Estelle Pienaar]

Today I wanted to inform myself today about the scripting language that Linden Lab foresees for Project Sansar: C#.

I stumbled over a reddit post for another game with user created content, called 'Kerbal Space Programme' (link at the end of this post).

Here are some of the comments of informed users (people who know programming and scripting languages) about the proposal to use C# as the language for user content creation in 'Kerbal Space Programme':

"C# = high learning curve and high complexity cost to the user."

"Please don't make us script in an application development language."

"C# is going to alienate quite a load of the intended audience. I don't think that'd be a positive move for the developers."

"Really, I can't see C# being even slightly feasible as an in-game programming language in the game (EDIT: in terms of people being willing to learn it). You're going to be left with only career programmers."

"C# as a scripting language for ingame scripting is insane."

There are also other commenter who are supporting C#, but they seem to be mostly professional programmers.

I am wondering why such a discussion hasn't taken place in regards to Sansar? Do people not care? Has LL made so many bad decisions in regards to Sansar, that this will not make a difference anyway? What do you think?

Here is the link to the KSP reddit discussion on C#: https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceengineers/comments/28j9qn/dear_devs_c_is_not_a_scripting_language_please/

[Innula Zenovka]

We don't yet know, of course, what form of C# scripting engine Sansar will use.   I'm assuming -- possibly mistakenly, but it would be the obvious choice -- that they'll use something like Unity's implementation, which is designed to be easy for beginners to learn and I've found a lot easier to pick up than I found LSL when I started.     

If I'm correct in this, then I'll be very pleased to be using C#, since I'm finding it's a lot more versatile than is LSL and also has a lot of functions that do useful stuff that, in LSL, I'd have to write my own userfunctions to achieve.

[steph Arnott]

"I am wondering why such a discussion hasn't taken place in regards to Sansar?" it has and usually ends up witth both sides arguing for days. Personaly i have no intetion of learning c# or going to Sansar. When SL is defunct i may consider it but i doubt i will bother.

[Madelaine McMasters]

C# seems an appropriate choice given that Sansar's creation environment is purportedly targeted at "experience" creation. That sounds like a level up from typical SL creation, both in 3D design and scripting. LSL simply isn't up to that task. It's not really even up to the task of scripting things here in SL.

I don't expect we'll have to understand all of C# to make simple things in Sansar. We might have to climb higher into the language to do big projects, but that learning curve will be dwarfed by the learning curve of the Sansar function library and underlying system architecture. That's currently true of LSL and SL. A quick look through the scripting forum will show that object movement, communications and events raise more questions than LSL syntax or semantics.

The way I see it, anything would be an improvement over LSL.

[Estelle Pienaar]

Thanks for the feedback! I am already a bit calmer then before. I guess, I didn't stick to the rule to not panik before there is actual reason.

[steph Arnott]

The way things are going you may have died of old age before Sansar is public and by that time it be out of date anyway.

[Rolig Loon]

https://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/Exclusive-Message-for-Second-Life-Residents-Available-Inworld/ba-p/3018245

[steph Arnott]

Project Sansar is going to be restrictive as in terms of what an experience creator has defined. That means you are not going to just roam around and join in an experience as you normaly do. The creator will be able to give you a choice of, this is what you have look like or you leave.There are other issues, with avatar types, at the monent and for the for seeable future it is restricted to bi ped human and not anything else

[steph Arnott]

Listen to this its around about the 17 min mark.

[steph Arnott]

Thanks for wasteing my time with a purile LL joke.

[Rolig Loon]

You're welcome.  :smileyvery-happy:

[steph Arnott]

You just lost my respect for you.

[Estelle Pienaar]

We are off topic now but I think you are seeing experience restrictions to negative. It's an option for experience creators, not a must. There will be countless experiences where you can go as you like and some where you have to chose a predifined avatar. If that's a no-go for you then avoid these experiences and go to others that let you all the freedom you need. I think that it is a good thing to give people options. And it can be an option to reduce freedom of individual expression for the sake of a more realistic experience. I don't see a problem in it.

The same goes for human avatars. Maybe it's in the current developing stage only possible to be a humanoid avatar, but it's a very early stage. I would bet money that later on there will be even more possibilities for avatar forms than in SL.

[Qwalyphi Korpov]

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Rolig Loon wrote:

https://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/Exclusive-Message-for-Second-Life-Residents-Available-Inworld/ba-p/3018245

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April fools day item from the LL.   Dats funny.

[steph Arnott]

As this is an LSL forum then Sansar and C# are not relevent here. You talk as if you have been in Sansar for which you have not, so apart from a few bits of released information you are making opinions based on a vacuum.There is not even an official release date, last comments about that are December, which amounted to,  maybe, could be then again could not be

[Monti Messmer]

C# isn´t that hard to learn and it´s more used than LSL or maybe Perl.

I doubt that LL will change it´s mind when the decision is done, never did.

Right now we had the same thing with mesh. People who didn´t spend a second on SL but are "pro" with Blender flooded the market and pushed long time people aside. Blender is hard to learn because the GUI is .... :matte-motes-zipped:

Maybe C# is not the best decicsion but stuck to LSL with all it´s limits and then maybe try to enhance it for Sansar ..

SL and Sansar are not related in any part (beside the company behind), mabe the best time to throw away all the old stuff and start new.

Just my personal bit on that

Monti

[Cerise Sorbet]

Those comments on Reddit make me wonder if the commenters haven't actually met C#, and are assuming it's a lot like C++. C# is more likely to leave you with a nagging feeling that you got away with it too easily, because they took care of a lot of the tradtitional busywork.

(MS really shouldn't have picked a name for this language that implied torture.)

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

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Monti Messmer wrote:

Right now we had the same thing with mesh. People who didn´t spend a second on SL but are "pro" with Blender flooded the market and pushed long time people aside. Blender is hard to learn because the GUI is .... :matte-motes-zipped:

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I'm not real comfortable with that analogy. A 3D model is pretty directly applicable across platforms* but knowledge of a programming language confers minimal advantage for using it in an environment like Sansar (or SL). Or, put another way, once one is accustomed to learning a new computer language every year or so, adding another one is nothing compared to learning all the non-language-specific library calls, their bugs, and eccentricities.

Granted, C# is far from the hot new language right now, but maybe that's an advantage: tried and true (especially for Mono).

And although I say choice of language isn't a big deal, I must admit I'm kinda glad they picked something other than LUA, only because so much game scripting uses LUA. I'd prefer to think of Sansar as way broader than gaming, assuming it ever really takes off.

 

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*There might be a closer analogy with rigging mesh to a platform-specific skeleton, but that's a dark art about which I know little to nothing.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

Put another way, once one is accustomed to learning a new computer language every year or so, adding another one is nothing compared to learning all the non-language-specific library calls, their bugs, and eccentricities.

 

 

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Yes!

Put another 'nother way, the differences between computer languages are miniscule compared to the differences between the things people design with them.

[Estelle Pienaar]

steph, in my eyes it is relevant to some long term SL scripters what scripting language a possible SL successor might use. There have been 18 answers so far, but yeah, you decide what's relevant. Sure!

Also you were the one talking about appearence restrictions in Sansar as if it is a given fact. I have corrected you based on some older reports from discussions from the Lindens. But yeah, you decide who is making opinions from a vacuum. Sure!

 

 

[steph Arnott]

Sansar has not even been released and is still under development and this is an LSL forum. What ever prople decide to do in Sansar if it ever does get released is upto them, but that still has nothing to do with LSL scripting for which is that big title displayed as this forums function. Incedently. if C# had been the SL code i would have left years ago, LSL was the reason i stayed. LSL for all its faults allowed many to produce great work and if they wanted to gave them confidence to learn other languages or get every ounce sqeezed out of LSL. If anything LSL probably made better coders than those non pros would have done starting with other langauges, for a start the memory limit was so low that one had to write efficient code just to get the thing not to stack heap error. I garrantee C# will do exactly what mesh as done in SL a few pros doing it all and the mass haveing to pay for which is not what SL was all about.

[Nova Convair]

The memory limit in LSL does not make for efficient code. The opposite is the case plus communication overhead between scripts and wasted time for development. Not to mention the cases where you use the 2nd or 3rd best solution and not the best one due to the limitations of this LSL implementation.

LSL is very limited and used far over it's intended scope.

For a new virtual world it's of course not an option.

The language that is used doesnt matter anyways. Once you know a few you can learn to use all languages and C# is one of the easier ones.

[steph Arnott]

The simple facts are, which you fail to make an allowences for, is not all of us are in SL to learn every code language just too have fun. You may find it a breeze to go from one type of code to another, i certainly do not. I can speak and write seven langauges fluently for which i could equaly say thats is easy for you, whih it is not. Just becouse you find it easy does mean others do.. People think in different ways, what you are good at does not mean others are. C# i can not even undertand, never mind try and write any code with it. People will go into Sansar for their own reasons and others will stay or come to SL for other reasons, i like tea others like coffee, thats life.

[Rolig Loon]

I've already forgotten half the programming languages I ever learned, starting with Fortran II.  Another one, more or less, isn't going to make much difference.  Logic is logic. 

(I've forgotten a couple of RL languages that I used to be fluent in too, but that's a different story.)

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Rolig Loon wrote:

(I've forgotten a couple of RL languages that I used to be fluent in too, but that's a different story.)

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And I'm forgetting the only RL language I was ever fluent in!