[sldev] Re: Plugin architecture

Ben Byer sldev at bushing.mm.st
Wed Feb 21 20:02:53 PST 2007


On Feb 21, 2007, at 5:55 PM, soft at softnoel.org wrote:

>> This assumes that we should accept new plugins on the fly, without
>> restarting the client.  I'm not sure that's a reasonable design goal.
>> If plugins were totally asynchronous like that, how would you  
>> start them
>> when SL started?  Or should they sit there as little daemons or  
>> services
>> whenever the system is booted, just waiting for SL to start?
>
> Tank treads model aside, accepting/enabling/disabling new plugins  
> without
> restarting is desirable.

What's a "tank treads model"?

> It will shorten iteration times for plugin developers.

Agreed.

> It will enable restarting the viewer in a plugin-free "safe mode"  
> and manually reenabling plugins one at a time after a crash.

Neither of those features requires the ability to install a new  
plugin without restarting.

> It will make technologies like self-updating plugins [possible]

... nor does this one.  Firefox lets you do all of those things, but  
will only install / uninstall / upgrade after restarting.

> [...] and LL-triggered plugin invalidation possible.

Whoa.  Everyone, raise your hand if you think this is a good idea.

-b




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