Lab Discovers Secret to Stable Software – Unit Testing!
by Alphaville Herald on 13/04/08 at 4:18 pm
by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk
Today, a reader pointed out an amazing innovation in software development being pioneered by the our friends in Linden Lab – the unit test. After years of something less than total grid stability, long term residents of the metaverse may have trouble believing that the game gods have an interest in fixing problems in the game – but based on a new series of avatar names released today it appears that the Lab is actually going to test the game a bit before inflicting it on the residents. Could this mean that someday MacBook Pros will not freeze every 20 minutes? Have the adults finally seized control inside the Lab?
http://www.slnamewatch.com/ tell an amazing tale of über hawt, sexy new last name options for SL residents, including UnitTestBribery, UnitTestParamilita, UnitTestMain, UnitTestWaffled, UnitTestComer, UnitTestCataloguin, UnitTestTopologica, UnitTestDisobliged, UnitTestBuckler. Perhaps the Lab has decided that fixing problems is more important than bright, shiny new features. On the other hand, the leakage of the internal test names suggests that the Lab might need to do a bit of unit testing on the avatar naming system itself, but the Herald is more than willing to put those concerns aside for now in the interest of getting former cheerleaders like Reuters to stop talking smack on SL stability.
UnitTest me baby!
Tenshi Vielle
Apr 14th, 2008
I saw the name listing and looked into it a little – these unit testers are for a development team called Three Immersions, a SL development company that’s doing something under Chinese-language Secondlife. http://www.3jlife.cn/index.jsp?Url=new/slUserRegister
Or, at least, that’s what a few of these Unit Tester names are doing out there.
whisper2u
Apr 17th, 2008
There is something really weird going on. It seems that IBM, who just recently made a deal with LINDEN LABS to be able to host their own Second Life servers privately behind their own firewall have decided that THAT is not good enough, and have now THROWN IN BIG BIG BUCKS WITH THE OPENSIM PROJECT to create a NEW WORLD called “OPEN LIFE(tm)”… woah…
They say that their new SL FIREWALLED WORLDS will be used to TEST INTEROPERABILITY BETWEEN METAVERSE WORLDS, that would be to create some kind of WARP SYSTEM where a person could cross a SL sim border and LEAVE SECOND LIFE BEHIND and instantly be standing in a sim in IBM’s new OpenSim powered “OPEN LIFE(tm)” world.
This is diabolical (grin). I can see their plan now… They plan to be a “GRID” system similar to DEEP GRID, or OSGRID, or CENTRAL GRID, where OpenSim operators who run their own home OpenSim Grid on their own home OpenSim servers will be able to connect to the new central IBM GRID to bring everyone together.
But unlike DEEP GRID, or OSGRID or CENTRAL GRID, on the IBM OpenLife(tm) grid, once you connect your home grid to it, all your junk from Second Life will show up in your inventory, and you can troop (or fly a spaceship) right from your own home grid, through OpenLife and then right into Second Life… wow… holy cow… Leave it to IBM.
HOW WILL THIS AFFECT LINDEN LABS?? Well… here is an excerpt from the breaking story, which you should go read at: http://www.metaversemessenger.com
“…Asked what the future held as the OpenSim project comes to maturity, Flasheart speculated that eventually users “will buy hosting services, just like we do now for web services, and corporations will manage their hosting differently, depending on whether or not the virtual world is inside or outside their firewall,” adding that “They’ll have their own hosting arrangement with their own boxes in someone else’s facility.” As to what this may mean for Linden Lab, Flasheart said, “Well, seriously, I think it’s going to depend quite a lot on the business decisions they make going forward — and no one can predict that,” particularly with a new CEO coming on board.
“There’s a real opportunity here for them, and for their shareholders.”
Ok, I’m outta here for a bit to try and digest all this new info and to dig a little deeper into what is happening… IBM is Overgrowing Linden Labs… Its gonna be tough to top that news in my quest to bring interesting things to read here. And I don’t think that “A/B Unlimited FAIL Unit Testing” is going to pull LL outta the fire now…
Strife Onizuka
Apr 20th, 2008
A good number of Lindens have various test accounts (do a search for Tester) and have had them for several years. This isn’t new but it might be news to some.