The new VP of engineering at Linden Lab

[Innula Zenovka]

16 hours ago, Anna Nova said:

Nothing, absolutely nothing, that comes from or via Microsoft can be in any way even remotely good.

Didn't the late Ebbe Linden used to work for Microsoft?   I thought he was the best CEO LL's had for a long time.

[panterapolnocy]

I generally don't do the Shameless Self Promotion thing, but this time it's more than relevant, I guess. Below: Recording of Mojo's first appearance during a Third Party Viewer meeting, his introduction and few comments:

It is also worth to check these two:

https://modemworld.me/2021/09/18/mojo-linden-the-labs-new-engineering-vp-discusses-sl-at-tpvd-meeting/

https://modemworld.me/2021/09/18/2021-ccug-and-tpv-developer-meetings-week-37-summary/

Edited September 18, 2021 by panterapolnocy

[lucagrabacr]

13 hours ago, panterapolnocy said:

I generally don't do the Shameless Self Promotion thing, but this time it's more than relevant, I guess. Below: Recording of Mojo's first appearance during a Third Party Viewer meeting, his introduction and few comments:

 

Always enjoy your coverage of these Pantera, thanks for the video c=

[Nika Talaj]

I haven't been to a user group meeting in about 10 years.  I think the last one I went to was a 'bug' meeting run by Alexa.  That had an actual agenda and she kept it moving forward, while giving plenty of space for user participation.  This 3rd party viewer meeting was really painful to watch, Vir let the meeting vaguely lurch from topic to topic, there was not a single action item created.

It's very odd to me that this meeting was Mojo's first public introduction.  Is LL never going to formally introduce the guy to the residents?  @Strawberry Linden, maybe a somewhat scripted Lab Gab, where he can share his background and reassure the immediate world that he is in fact learning to use SL? 

Given the leadership vacuum, Jessica Lyon stepped in and more-or-less took over the meeting, repeatedly making an impassioned plea for Mojo to "polish"/complete the features SL already has, rather than chasing more shiny.  She can make this point powerfully, since Firestorm runs the only widely utilized inworld support organization, and thank god they do it. LL's concierge support is also very good, but only available to premium residents, and unlike Firestorm support it is private - conversations there do not serve any purpose of educating the broader community.  She repeatedly said that fixing SL would make residents love Mojo.  Unfortunately, his job is not to make residents love him.  His job is to make SL more successful, and I had to agree with him that it might be more germane to concentrate on something like onboarding new residents less painfully rather than, for example, fixing EEP's many flaws.  Of course LL (& Firestorm) are doubtless weary of tackling new resident onboarding, it's a forever problem, but perhaps Mojo can inspire some new ideas.  I'd guess that it is defeating for @Patch Linden's team to organize the fantastic partnership events they've been offering, and see how few new users "stick".

I was left feeling sad for Mojo.  I'm sure it is not thrilling, as a new VP Engineering, to hear that what the users want is for his development engineers to do, essentially, bug fixes and tweaks for the foreseeable future.  This is another reason why it would be good to formally introduce him, so he isn't immediately put into a defensive position (as in this meeting), and also to provide him a platform where (if he wishes) he can solicit feedback directly from residents on issues of interest to him, rather than filter the feedback through 3rd party viewer teams.

An example: there was some interesting discussion about the efforts to provide more accurate rendering costs, both for avatars and for objects.  This will of course mean a huge shock to many users, finding that all the cute 1LI objects decorating their Bellisseria homes are fiendishly costly, that their Maitreya bodies are an abomination, and Lelutka heads are monsters gobbling up graphics memory and rendering cycles.  TPV engineers want better stats NAOW so users and creators can make better choices, but to just drop that feature inworld without having worked with body/head makers to make genuinely efficient upgrades ahead of time (or, god forbid, for LL actually PROVIDE a decent mash body and head, WITH HUD), is going to cause much frustration.  LL has to consider how to stage this feature, how to mitigate its effect on maker profits, etc.  -- something TPV developers probably will not be able to help with.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

I'd like to see Mojo pop on the mboards and introduce himself.

[Drayke Newall]

3 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

His job is to make SL more successful, and I had to agree with him that it might be more germane to concentrate on something like onboarding new residents less painfully rather than, for example, fixing EEP's many flaws. 

It's things like this that show that LL are out of step with things in that the two are mutually exclusive. It is sad to see that even newer staff members are going down the same avenue LL have done with SL onboarding for 18 years and still after updating the signup and noob island over and over cant see that the onboarding experience also includes the 'After' of those two things. The 'After' only us residents can provide with the limited buggy tools we have been provided.

For example, lets say a person comes to sign up for second life because they heard or saw an advertisement that you can sail a boat in second life. This for onboarding requires not only the initial noob island but also requires the person to enjoy sailing. They need to for example not see water in their boat, not lag across regions, not have the boat detach or displace from its original position crossing a region etc. They need to have that initial noob island experience relevant to them, allow them to sail a boat.

Take flying a plane in second life. Perhaps a person saw that you can fly and wanted to experience that. This requires them to be impressed that they wont lag and it is just as an immersive experience as elsewhere. It doesn't need to be as good as modern games but at least have basic elements that make it more enjoyable.

Give them the hook they signed up for, let them experience it and then reel them into other areas.

As to his comment about onboarding and EEP and bug fixes etc you mentioned. EEP is just as curial to the onboarding experience than what he or Linden Lab seem to think, just as feature updates and fixes are and it is worrying they dont see that. Jessica Lyon sees this in asking for more polish and completion of current features.

Take the two above examples, which would retain a user better EEP as it is now where they sail in an uneventful sea that is the same over and over or fly in a barren sky that looks the same over and over or an updated and fixed EEP using the original windlight systems of whether etc., not currently in EEP?

Where a person sailing a boat can have weather changes. i.e. as they sail they encounter a thunder storm or a low rising fog, etc that is controlled by EEP and not laggy, unjointed temp prim rez weather systems we only have now. Where a person flying a plane can fly that plane above clouds or through thunder storms that the scripters of those planes can add turbulence effects to or change the weather of EEP using experience tool scripting during the flight etc.

The same for a person that comes for RP. They want to see that when a person animates on something, that animation is going to work flawlessly with whatever size/shape avatar they have. Do they really want to sit on a chair and have their avatar not fit the scale or allow for the chair script to automatically scale your avatar to the right size for just that animation, like other games/platforms do?

Until LL realise this and update the start onboarding alongside Second Life's other systems they have not completed or polished - treating BOTH as a requirement for retention, the better. I agree with Jessica Lyon "for Mojo to "polish"/complete the features SL already has, rather than chasing more shiny" and also agree with her in that the residents (including new users) will love Mojo (and by extension Linden Lab and Second Life) for it.

I wish Mojo well and hope he takes an approach to retention and onboarding that is better and different than his predecessors.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Nika Talaj]

2 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

As to his comment about onboarding and EEP and bug fixes etc you mentioned. EEP is just as curial to the onboarding experience than what he or Linden Lab seem to think, just as feature updates and fixes are and it is worrying they dont see that. Jessica Lyon sees this in asking for more polish and completion of current features.

Note: the example of EEP was MY example, not Mojo's.  He was very careful not to be very specific in his comments, wise in someone new to the platform.

[Drayke Newall]

3 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

Note: the example of EEP was MY example, not Mojo's.  He was very careful not to be very specific in his comments, wise in someone new to the platform.

Ah I see, thanks for clarifying - I find those videos horrible and difficult to watch so usually go by a transcript which wasn't provided just summaries. I still stand by what I said though. Even if that is other features like pathfinding, experience tools, default body etc.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Nika Talaj]

A lot of what you're asking for makes sense, Drayke.   Part of smooth onboarding certainly is continuing to work on performance so that LL could safely make driving or sailing a boat part of the onboarding process.  

Some of what you mention exists now -- for example, a vehicle maker CAN use experience tools to simulate a rising fog for a pilot and passengers.  These tools are so recently deployed that I doubt there are many vehicles that take advantage of them.  But I did attend a dance performance tonight that adjusted environments for specific acts and scenes using experience tools - it was very cool!  I don't know if a real thunderstorm would fall within the capabilities of current experience tools - I'd have to review the experience API.  I think expanding them to simulate real turbulence would be a followon project that seems to me to be too large to characterize as "polishing".  But that's just semantics.

Scaling sits or an avatar's skeleton so that we never have to use an "adjust" menu again is also something I would characterize as a completely new feature -- one that would be a fantastic relief! 

 

[Drayke Newall]

45 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

A lot of what you're asking for makes sense, Drayke.   Part of smooth onboarding certainly is continuing to work on performance so that LL could safely make driving or sailing a boat part of the onboarding process.  

Some of what you mention exists now -- for example, a vehicle maker CAN use experience tools to simulate a rising fog for a pilot and passengers.  These tools are so recently deployed that I doubt there are many vehicles that take advantage of them.  But I did attend a dance performance tonight that adjusted environments for specific acts and scenes using experience tools - it was very cool!  I don't know if a real thunderstorm would fall within the capabilities of current experience tools - I'd have to review the experience API.  I think expanding them to simulate real turbulence would be a followon project that seems to me to be too large to characterize as "polishing".  But that's just semantics.

Scaling sits or an avatar's skeleton so that we never have to use an "adjust" menu again is also something I would characterize as a completely new feature -- one that would be a fantastic relief! 

 

I am not saying that a fog isn't possible now and that experience tools cant control it. I am saying that fog is still generated by a temp rez particle system that causes more lag and performance issues VS something that is within the actual graphical engine of second life such as windlight and controllable as far as optimization goes by LL and the viewer graphical settings.

As I mentioned in another thread, the windlight engine that LL own and use already had/has the capabilities of storms, blizzards, fog, dust storms, snow, rain etc built into it but was removed by LL. It wouldn't be a 'new feature' simply re-adding what was removed and never implemented.

As to the animation, not necessarily. Take for instance if LL decide that the best way forward for avatar optimisation is a mesh collapsing system where the entire avatar (attachments included) is 'baked' into one physical mesh and rendered as opposed to multiple attachments. Having a resize function added at the same time would be a lot easier and therefore becomes a side addition of the optimisation system. After all, the need for pose adjustment scripts, objects etc would be removed and therefore also increase overall sim performance.

It is all perspective. A good developer sees optimisation as a whole not a specific this or that. ARC for instance doesn't necessarily need to just be just for an avatar it could have been expanded as 'AORC - Avatar and Object Rendering Cost'. Instead it was used as a metric for one which saw better object design for avatars (e.g. have to get that avatar ARC number green) where as it saw no benefit in reducing object complexity outside of avatars.

[Coffee Pancake]

8 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

I haven't been to a user group meeting in about 10 years.  I think the last one I went to was a 'bug' meeting run by Alexa.  That had an actual agenda and she kept it moving forward, while giving plenty of space for user participation.  This 3rd party viewer meeting was really painful to watch, Vir let the meeting vaguely lurch from topic to topic, there was not a single action item created.

TPV meetings are not on the public list of user groups, they do tend to be punctuated by specific and wildly differing issues from different teams. There is no set agenda beyond LL devs keeping TPV devs abreast of upcoming viewer changes, and us raising issues we have had integrating Linden changes or specific technical questions relating to our own work.

8 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

IGiven the leadership vacuum,

What are they going to do .. demand we do stuff?

8 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

Jessica Lyon stepped in and more-or-less took over the meeting,

The bulk of 3rd party devs do not use voice and Firestorm tend to be poorly represented at TPV meetings. It's rare to see FS devs in attendendance.

Typically it's me & Kitty, Inara, Pantera and a couple of independent devs & interested residents. Sometimes Petra from FS support, sometimes Beq & Whirly .. rarely a wild trouser-less niran.

https://www.youtube.com/c/PanteraPolnocy/search?query=third party

Only reason I missed this one was a wedding IRL ..

 

8 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

I'm sure it is not thrilling, as a new VP Engineering, to hear that what the users want is for his development engineers to do, essentially, bug fixes and tweaks for the foreseeable future. 

We can't ask them to do anything else. We find and validate bugs, we follow up on specific JIRA issues. Update them on the status of our projects, discuss the feasibility of server side changes for features we're considering (which 99% of the time their answer is "no").

LL have a limited number of devs working on a specific and limited number of projects. They do not have the staff to send devs off into the weeds.

Getting TPV code into LL is not a simple or straight forward process and requires a transfer of ownership from us to LL (as they wish to reserve the right not to release their viewer under a FOSS license. They can't just go shopping for viewer features in 3rd party projects as that would taint their code).

8 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

This is another reason why it would be good to formally introduce him, so he isn't immediately put into a defensive position (as in this meeting), and also to provide him a platform where (if he wishes) he can solicit feedback directly from residents on issues of interest to him, rather than filter the feedback through 3rd party viewer teams.

TPV meetings are not a Linden love in, that's not productive. Neither are vague unfiltered resident inquiries that are not specifically related to viewer code .. it just happens to be they see the problem in their viewer, ergo .. 

8 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

An example: there was some interesting discussion about the efforts to provide more accurate rendering costs, both for avatars and for objects.  This will of course mean a huge shock to many users, finding that all the cute 1LI objects decorating their Bellisseria homes are fiendishly costly, that their Maitreya bodies are an abomination, and Lelutka heads are monsters gobbling up graphics memory and rendering cycles.  TPV engineers want better stats NAOW so users and creators can make better choices, but to just drop that feature inworld without having worked with body/head makers to make genuinely efficient upgrades ahead of time (or, god forbid, for LL actually PROVIDE a decent mash body and head, WITH HUD), is going to cause much frustration.  LL has to consider how to stage this feature, how to mitigate its effect on maker profits, etc.  -- something TPV developers probably will not be able to help with.

The first time we will see updated ARC or Li calculations is when LL release a viewer with those in.

If that project viewer follows the pattern of every previous project, we will get it when it's 99% complete and the bulk of the work has been done and budgets spent. Focus will then be on testing and finding edge cases that result in unintended consequences.

ARC as it stands is junk, we've been saying this very clearly here for years now. New numbers will be different and we will have to see if they focus on just rendering costs or include processing time .. if so .. onion skin bodies with alpha sections are going to take a beating .. as I at least have been saying here for a log time.

There is a strong social case to be made for removing ARC entirety and not replacing it at all. Technical informational numbers have a habit of being turned into personal judgement values by the wider SL community and used as a means to impart blame (like the script memory fiasco).

We know where the problem in the viewer is and can easily identity what's causing the performance impact. ARC 2.0 will do nothing to address that specific code and will just shift the problem onto residents .. who will use that new information to find edge cases and point fingers.

 

As for Li .. it's unlikely LL will make changes that cause the Li of rezzed objects to increase, such a scenario would trigger a massive grid wide auto return event, followed by a resident freakout, followed by a roll back.

[Quistess Alpha]

11 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

As for Li .. it's unlikely LL will make changes that cause the Li of rezzed objects to increase, such a scenario would trigger a massive grid wide auto return event, followed by a resident freakout, followed by a roll back.

Is the Li (or the 3? different Li component factors) of an individual mesh asset calculated at upload, or dynamically as it's used in a linkset? Is it technically feasible to have new Li formulas for new meshes, and grandfather in whatever Li existing content already has?

Edited September 19, 2021 by Quistess Alpha

[Coffee Pancake]

50 minutes ago, Quistess Alpha said:

Is the Li (or the 3? different Li component factors) of an individual mesh asset calculated at upload, or dynamically as it's used in a linkset? Is it technically feasible to have new Li formulas for new meshes, and grandfather in whatever Li existing content already has?

Even then (and im not 100% sure how its set from upload now), any change will force a recalc, which turns every rezzed object on the grid into a land mine just waiting for its owner to look at it the wrong way.

[animats]

I''m curious to see what the new guy does first. What he says publicly means little at this point.

On the technical front, I don't see measuring complexity for land impact purposes as the crucial issue. It's more useful to deal with complexity by automatically adjusting level of detail of both textures and meshes to maintain roughly equal detail per screen pixel. I've demoed this experimentally for textures. That approach deals with legacy content.

(Wrong topic to discuss the technical issues. I've been discussing this on GameDev, which is a more technical forum.)

[Prokofy Neva]

Well, he looks like one cool dude, like a sort of white Morpheus! I'm *glad* he had 16 years at Microsoft, that means he worked for a normal company, doing normal things, meeting *customer requirements*. That's all to the good. He shouldn't be ashamed nor let this bunch browbeat him.

Far from being evil, this means he's a grownup who isn't obsessed with the open-source cult, at least from what we can tell so far. To be sure, by rolling him out at the third-party viewer meeting, there's the danger that he will be captured and wind up placating this very aggressive lobby which of course has the leverage of being the viewer most people use, in contrast with the company's own viewer. Maybe he can change that.

It's ironic with all that casino and slot machine work that he arrives just when gatchas were banned. He went from that to working on simulated surgery, so from evil to good, so to speak, as he tells us.

None of this gang will ask him about fixing search, so I should get myself to one of these meetings and ask.

Of course it's appalling that TPV meetings are not put on the public list of meetings with Lindens. Just appalling.

Edited September 20, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

On 9/9/2021 at 7:39 PM, Innula Zenovka said:

Didn't the late Ebbe Linden used to work for Microsoft?   I thought he was the best CEO LL's had for a long time.

Exactly!

[Coffee Pancake]

8 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Well, he looks like one cool dude, like a sort of white Morpheus! I'm *glad* he had 16 years at Microsoft, that means he worked for a normal company, doing normal things, meeting *customer requirements*. That's all to the good. He shouldn't be ashamed nor let this bunch browbeat him.

It also means working practices like crunch and aggressive layoffs.

8 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Far from being evil, this means he's a grownup who isn't obsessed with the open-source cult,

That powers the bulk of the internet (including much of SL server side) and MS themselves are a major open source contributor that own GitHub.

8 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Of course it's appalling that TPV meetings are not put on the public list of meetings with Lindens. Just appalling.

That could happen.

We would of course then need a separate developer only meeting so as to raise technical issues without getting distracted by residents with their "i saw it in the viewer, therefore" issue of the day.

I propose we name it the FFVDC meeting (standing for "FFVDC are the real Feted FOSS Viewer Developer Cultists").

[Silent Mistwalker]

Wow. Some people sure do get their panties in a twist over a humorous welcome to the newest member of the SL family. 🙄

 

 

 

 

Toldja he's gonna need the chute.

[Prokofy Neva]

9 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

It also means working practices like crunch and aggressive layoffs.

That powers the bulk of the internet (including much of SL server side) and MS themselves are a major open source contributor that own GitHub.

That could happen.

We would of course then need a separate developer only meeting so as to raise technical issues without getting distracted by residents with their "i saw it in the viewer, therefore" issue of the day.

I propose we name it the FFVDC meeting (standing for "FFVDC are the real Feted FOSS Viewer Developer Cultists").

I don't recall that Oz kept it secret when he was in charge.

It doesn't matter if "the Internet" runs on open source or Microsoft accepts it. What I'm talking about is the *cult* of open source which Microsoft doesn't favour or it wouldn't be in business.

Honest to God, I don't get why this TPV lot gets their private audiences with their Lindens.

Yeah, distracted by residents with really basic questions like "why haven't you fixed search for nearly a year?!"

[Silent Mistwalker]

47 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

why this TPV lot gets their private audiences with their Lindens.

It's how they stay in compliance for one thing. There are quite a few other valid reasons as well, but, I already know there is no point in telling you since you'll just refute it and call me a lair without outright calling me a liar. And you do it so well. So here's your chance to claim the TPVs don't have anything to be compliant with or whatever off the wall bs you come up with. You do that real well, too.

Ta.

[Arielle Popstar]

9 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

We would of course then need a separate developer only meeting so as to raise technical issues without getting distracted by residents with their "i saw it in the viewer, therefore" issue of the day.

I propose we name it the FFVDC meeting (standing for "FFVDC are the real Feted FOSS Viewer Developer Cultists").

I laughed at this because after regularly attending these sort of meetings for a dozen or so years in both Opensim and S/L, I can relatively safely say that it is a rare thing to see regular residents come to those meetings and asking for anything that might actually come to any fruition. That is probably a big reason why the viewers are so user unfriendly to anyone other then those who have already been around a long time and used to the unintuitive UI's. Some features many other games have like pictorial inventories, buttons to step clothing changes back and forward, allow name changes to products that are no modify etc would go a long way to making the viewer more manageable for old and new alike. Rather then exclusive viewer dev meetings with no chat logs, let's have a "meet the devs" meetings for the residents with a little better response from those involved in viewer development and Lindens about when they are going to put some features in these viewers to make our lives easier as well as maybe help retain new users. The "soon" answer has to be stopped if people are going to take the Lab seriously because at this point it is just a standing joke. 

I'm increasingly having to agree with a recent poster who pointed out that the Lab is taking increasingly bigger steps to retiring this platform because they absolutely refuse to come good for any old fixes or new features within anything like a reasonable time frame.

[Coffee Pancake]

50 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Honest to God, I don't get why this TPV lot gets their private audiences with their Lindens.

Yeah, distracted by residents with really basic questions like "why haven't you fixed search for nearly a year?!"

This is exactly my point.

You're totally welcome to show up to the TPV and ask "Why is search broken?"

It all goes south right after you do ... as the Graphics Linden present has no idea and it's not part of his workload, the next Linden shrugs for the same reasons, another might chatter about how there are questions about what meaningful search results might or might not look like but as this is a meeting about viewers he's not got any portent information to hand, the gathered TPV devs will sit on their hands as not a single one of them has any idea what the search code might be doing (or even looks like), and finally someone will suggest you bring it up at the server meeting or file a JIRA.

End result, you're none the wiser, frustrated, and everyone's time was wasted.

If on the other hand you were building your own viewer, just from the source or as a project and had a relevant question about how something works, or a problem you may have encountered, the answers provided would be very different and meaningful.

There is no great conspiracy. All the TPV meetings are recorded and you can watch them any time you like on YouTube .. prepare to be bored.

Residents do show up to the TPV meetings .. but only those with a keen interest in how the viewer works or what's in the pipeline tend to stick around.

15 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Some features many other games have like pictorial inventories, buttons to step clothing changes back and forward, allow name changes to products that are no modify etc would go a long way to making the viewer more manageable for old and new alike.

If you're willing to take the time to work out exactly how such features would be expected to work, you will find plenty of devs willing to go over how that fits with the platform architecture.

Keep in mind viewer devs are sat between two opposite and exclusive goals. We have to make a viewer that works with the platform AND is accessible to the users of the platform.

You don't see TPV projects tossing the entire UI language in the bin as that would require its users to relearn everything from scratch, and there is a lot of expected functionality.

If you're not up for code, check out https://pencil.evolus.vn/ and mock up some UI doodles.  Seriously, you have ideas, do this.

15 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Rather then exclusive viewer dev meetings with no chat logs

TPV meetings are a mix of voice and text. They are recorded in full and posted on youtube.

If transcripts are important to you .. then you're probably going to be the person who needs to put the time in and make them.

15 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

let's have a "meet the devs" meetings for the residents with a little better response from those involved in viewer development and Lindens about when they are going to put some features in these viewers to make our lives easier

What would that accomplish?

There is no public roadmap at this time, just a number of viewer projects in progress, some in Q&A, some can be tested, some can't.

If you're after Lindens to pump the hype machine, SLB kinda has that covered.

15 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

The "soon" answer has to be stopped if people are going to take the Lab seriously because at this point it is just a standing joke. 

Soon is as good as it gets. Projects are in progress. You c an be updated to the progress, but no one knows exactly when things will be in a fit state to release, especially as most new features have dependencies that touch all parts of the product stack.

 

[Drayke Newall]

57 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

That is probably a big reason why the viewers are so user unfriendly to anyone other then those who have already been around a long time and used to the unintuitive UI's. Some features many other games have like pictorial inventories, buttons to step clothing changes back and forward, allow name changes to products that are no modify etc would go a long way to making the viewer more manageable for old and new alike. 

I am in a timezone where it is to late for me to attend such meetings. That said, I met Oz once outside of the meetings and talked to him about some feature requests (one in particular) that I thought would help improve the functionality of the viewer. His response, we dont have time for things like that and it would be to hard. This is the sort of response every user that isn't in the 'clique' gets I think.

Now I am not a coder (would love to be) and dont know how hard or time consuming this or that is, but common sense told me that it would be relatively easy.

The main feature request I was talking to him about was rather than having to open the people menu, find your friend in the list and then right click tp or im, why not have the ability to drag a person to the favourite bar and then have up there a quick access to favourited friends. This according to Oz was to hard and time consuming.

I then talked to Niran about it through a random IM. He was more than happy to hear me out and said "oh that sounds like a good idea and easy to do". Next viewer release of Black Dragon, there was the feature. All he did was code it so that the favourite bar accepted a residents 'calling card' to be placed there alongside landmarks. How hard this was I dont know but, he seemed to imply it should be an easy feature to implement.

Now I am not saying LL couldn't do it or didn't want to but, the impression I got from talking to Oz was that LL seem to only treat the default viewer with bigfixes and when it comes to new features they rarely put such features in if requested by users and leave that for TPV. Whether this is the case or not, I dont know but that was the impression I got from him. 

[Prokofy Neva]

5 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

It's how they stay in compliance for one thing. There are quite a few other valid reasons as well, but, I already know there is no point in telling you since you'll just refute it and call me a lair without outright calling me a liar. And you do it so well. So here's your chance to claim the TPVs don't have anything to be compliant with or whatever off the wall bs you come up with. You do that real well, too.

Ta.

You're conflating the reasons why it is worth meeting with outsiders who code the viewer used by most customers with the notion that it has to be kept secret, and feigning that the issue is that meeting with them isn't worth it. No, they, and the Lindens, should be accountable, and should have public meetings, and in fact they have been public in the past because I've gone to them. Are the TPVs compliant? A good question always to ask. But since they are near official in their status, they should answer to the public as much as the Lindens. PS search isn't broken on their viewer, and it's worth asking again and again why the Lindens have not fixed search on their own viewer even though there is a small percentage of us who use their viewer because -- why shouldn't we prefer to use the official viewer of the platform provider!

BTW the way you might be interested to know I contacted the long-ago tenants of Ravenglass from the time you rented. And also found notecards from that era. And we figured out that there wasn't a failure to give out ban powers -- as you claimed; the issue was that *orbs were not allowed* but there was a certain tenant who insisted on having them. Sound familiar? Amazing the records the old tenants kept which I didn't even keep myself.

 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

5 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

This is exactly my point.

You're totally welcome to show up to the TPV and ask "Why is search broken?"

It all goes south right after you do ... as the Graphics Linden present has no idea and it's not part of his workload, the next Linden shrugs for the same reasons, another might chatter about how there are questions about what meaningful search results might or might not look like but as this is a meeting about viewers he's not got any portent information to hand, the gathered TPV devs will sit on their hands as not a single one of them has any idea what the search code might be doing (or even looks like), and finally someone will suggest you bring it up at the server meeting or file a JIRA.

End result, you're none the wiser, frustrated, and everyone's time was wasted.

If on the other hand you were building your own viewer, just from the source or as a project and had a relevant question about how something works, or a problem you may have encountered, the answers provided would be very different and meaningful.

There is no great conspiracy. All the TPV meetings are recorded and you can watch them any time you like on YouTube .. prepare to be bored.

Residents do show up to the TPV meetings .. but only those with a keen interest in how the viewer works or what's in the pipeline tend to stick around.

If you're willing to take the time to work out exactly how such features would be expected to work, you will find plenty of devs willing to go over how that fits with the platform architecture.

Keep in mind viewer devs are sat between two opposite and exclusive goals. We have to make a viewer that works with the platform AND is accessible to the users of the platform.

You don't see TPV projects tossing the entire UI language in the bin as that would require its users to relearn everything from scratch, and there is a lot of expected functionality.

If you're not up for code, check out https://pencil.evolus.vn/ and mock up some UI doodles.  Seriously, you have ideas, do this.

TPV meetings are a mix of voice and text. They are recorded in full and posted on youtube.

If transcripts are important to you .. then you're probably going to be the person who needs to put the time in and make them.

What would that accomplish?

There is no public roadmap at this time, just a number of viewer projects in progress, some in Q&A, some can be tested, some can't.

If you're after Lindens to pump the hype machine, SLB kinda has that covered.

Soon is as good as it gets. Projects are in progress. You c an be updated to the progress, but no one knows exactly when things will be in a fit state to release, especially as most new features have dependencies that touch all parts of the product stack.

 

The MonCierge Lindens have no problem replying that yes, they know search is broken, and isn't it a shame, and it's being worked on. But it's not their area.

And it's not disruptive to ask a basic question about the basic functioning of the viewer from people who should be responsible for this very basic thing, and it need not take up time -- they can answer and explain why it is not being fixed, and explain just what it is server-side, or related to Apache or Google or whatever, that is preventing its fix. That's all.

Since there's Firestorm *the viewer* does not have a broken search, this leads me to wonder if search is not server side but a function of the viewer -- and therefore this is the right meeting for it. We could clear up that very question, for one.

The rest of what you're saying is not pertinent to my points, but I will say that when I called out the nuisance of the way the UI has changed on landmarks, the MonCierge Lindens instantly acknowledged this, said it was discussed, and that it would be changed. Certainly didn't hear anybody else mention this anywhere despite my laments. And indeed it's insane to have every single landmark land in "my favourites" when it isn't a favourite most of the time -- and land on the top and spread out vertically in a mess. Hardly a boon to newbies. MonCierge Lindens have to go around a lot to land parcels so they get this. Apparently the viewer meeting devotees just stay in the one sandbox or Linden office land and don't notice this.