[sldev] 9am office hour topic: plugin architecture

[Andy Estes]

I will try to be there but wanted to add my 5L$ on the list

I believe this will have to be a phased implementation.  Start with some
basics and add to it later.  I would love to have a client-side scripting
environment but agree that should be a separate discussion.

I think there is a general consensus toward the dynamic library load/message
hooks approach.  It is easy to implement and would be useful for an entire
class of filter-style plugins.  The plug-in would need access to some
internal functions (e.g. floater creation, text rendering).  I don't think
it will be very easy to provide hooks into the rendering engine initially
but confess that I haven't spent much time looking at the rendering code so
I would be happy to be proven wrong.  Some type of plug-in manager to
loading/unloading is also a necessity.

Security is an issue which must be dealt with.  With the ability to hook and
discard messages it might be trivial to write an uber-cool plug-in which
also happens to pay the author a few Linden Dollars every day or so.  Short
of looking at their transaction records, the user would never know.  The
best approach might be Linden issued certificates as it would tie First Life
name (which could remain hidden) to Second Life name to TOS.  Unfortunately,
I don't know if LL would have the cycles to manage this any time soon.

Personally, I am a fan of the design some, prototype some, design some more
style of engineering.  There is a bit of a catch-22 here because the code
base on which we are prototyping is regularly being changed and we don't
know what the next revision will bring.  Still, for my own part, I will
probably set up a local repository and start playing with bushing's code.

My question for Rob and LL is "Would you be willing to accept a phased
implementation (probably over a period of weeks to months) or would you
rather receive a more complete implementation?"

SL: Drewan
FL: Andy



-----Original Message-----
From: sldev-bounces at lists.secondlife.com
[mailto:sldev-bounces at lists.secondlife.com] On Behalf Of Rob Lanphier
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 3:29 AM
To: Second Life Developer Mailing List
Subject: [sldev] 9am office hour topic: plugin architecture

Hi all,

The 9am PST office hour topic today will be a discussion of plugin
architecture.  For those of you who can't make it, don't worry too
much.  I'm hoping someone will volunteer to take notes if the
conversation becomes interesting, and still consider this mailing list
the preferred venue for broad discussion.  The in-world discussion will
center around my advice for accelerating the process, for those that are
most eager to see progress on this front.

Further details available here:
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Rob_Linden

Rob