[sldev] Question by newbie to viewer source ...

[Lawson English]

Jay Reynolds Freeman wrote:
> I am rather a newbie to this list and to the SL viewer source.
>
> I have one of those questions which may betray my ignorance
> and be easily answered by providing a pointer to documentation
> I have missed; please indulge me while I ask it.
>
> I am attempting to build a modified viewer for use in MacOS.
> I can download sources and get them to build and run with no
> problem, and I am a moderately experienced Mac developer, Cocoa
> user, and XCode user.  So far, so good, but ...
>
> I am particularly interested in access to information provided
> by the SL servers, to the viewer, that describes the locations
> and perhaps various items of state about objects, about avatars,
> and in particular, about the avatar that represents the user.
I'm part of AW Groupies, the in-world group centered around the 
Architectural Working Group.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Architecture_Working_Group

We're currently trying to document the existing protocols in order to 
better advise Linden Lab about how to move towards LL's stated goal of a 
multi-grid, multi-vendor system.

http://secondlifegrid.net/programs/awg

Various other groups, such as libsecondlife and OpenSim are working on 
documenting and implementing their own versions of the client and 
server, and  you can find documentation relevant to what they are doing 
on their respective websites (they are years beyond what we are doing):

http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.libsecondlife.org/wiki/Main_Page


The AW Groupies work is currently focused on creating language-neutral 
documentation of the client-server 
protohttps://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/AW_Groupies#Documenting_current_protocolscols 
and implementing various parts of the client using Python and other 
languages such as Java in order to ensure our docs make sense.


https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/AW_Groupies#Documenting_current_protocols


AW Groupies has an  discussion group that you can join by contacting 
Saijanai Kuhn, Tree Kyomoon or Zha Ewry (Fearless Leader) in-world. We 
meet Tuesdays, 9:30 AM SL time, at Zha's island and often come up with 
new questions to ask Zero Linden at his office hours later in the day.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/AW_Groupies

The libsecondlife people maintain a lively discussion IRC chatroom at 
#libsl-dev irc.efnet.org or irc.choopa.ca

The opensim people maintain a lively discussion RIC chatroom at #opensim 
irc.freenode.net

They hold weekly meetinsgs as well: 
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Office_hours

Many of the technical "Lindens" hold in-world office hours to discuss 
various aspects of Second Life technology (all employees of Linden Labs 
take the last name of "Linden" for their avatar"):

http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=mvktahmo6mjpvpkkkdnmabmghg%40group.calendar.google.com

*Zero Linden was formerly involved with"Icehouse," the 
server/communications aspect of SL. He's now focused primarily on the 
AWG itself.
*Which Linden specializes in communications services.
*Andrew Linden specializes in Physics and the like. His office hours are 
currently about bug squashing during the transition from Havok 1 to 
Havok 4, but you may be able to get him to discuss other things.
*Rob Linden is involved with managing the open source effort at Linden Labs
*Bridie Linden is in charge of squashing bugs
*Qarl Linden is involved with graphics, especially "sculpties"
*Benjamin Linden is involved with User Interface design

and countless more.

If you have a chance, visit Torley Linden's place during office hours 
just so you can say you've met Teh Watermalinden...

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Office_Hours


Hope this helps...


Lawson (Saijanai Kuhn--Contact me in-world for an invite to AW Groupies 
if you're interested in helping design the future of SL...)