[sldev] Improving the source code

[Michael Miller]

To all:
I think most people on this list can agree that the SL code is a bit
old. It lacks the usage of major accepted libraries now(boost::thread
for example), and has many hacks littered throughout the code. At the
time that the SL client was created, these limitations probably
spawned the subpar code. But now that we have high-quality, efficient,
fast libraries to use, we can ditch a lot of the code. Off the top of
my head, I'd say LLThread and LLMutex could both be ditched by
switching to boost::thread, eliminating a lot of unnecessary code.

In addition to making use of high-quality 3rd party libraries, much of
the code's underlying structure can be improved. For example, the
message system has many limitations. Most notably, I encountered the
limitation of one function callback per message. This is a very bad
limitation to have, as it prohibits(or makes harder, anyway)
extensions to the SL source.

I think that updating the code is a great way to show Lindens that the
open source community can be useful. A lot of people have been, well,
let's say not too enthusiastic of Lindens response to user submitted
patches. Let's revamp the client, and show them that we can do
something useful!

I propose we make a list(on the wiki, maybe) of major source code
imrprovements that are needed. Then, we can delegate the tasks out,
and start working on them. I think that within even just a few months,
we can have a significantly more "solid" version of code than the
current client.