Linden Labs

[Laurelino Braendel]

Ireally got worried when Second Life came out; I thought it was going to be a game changer for the Internet; Until I realized that outside of programmers and college students there really aren't that many people with the sort of hardware and Internet connection requirements needed to have a decent user experience with Second Life.

That compounded with the fact that a Linden Labs server can really only handle about 70 people visiting a land at one time. Thus whatever interactive 3D content you create on Second Life cannot possibly generate the number of hits that you might get with a traditional web app.

LSL is nice little event-oriented language with great time/satisfaction ratio. It's a really good way to get into something totally different than usual oh-so-boring webapps stuff. You know the drill:

First and foremost, it doesn't really matter how big it is. The real question most people want to know is, "is it the next big thing?" It might be, or it might fail miserably. Maybe it already failed as mainstream product and defined itself as niche forever. But whatever it is, technologically it's bleeding edge, just like Amazon web services or iPhone. It is also only 3D MMO world which is not a game and more resembles Facebook (which is a 2D web phenomenon) than, say, World of Warcraft. Linden Labs (creators of Second Life) are also leading the only existing initiative which tries to connect 3D worlds and standardize protocols, which is pretty smart compared to other web platforms like Facebook, Amazon and Google stuff, who are still trying to lock developers into their platforms.

Comparing maximum of 70 people in one Second Life simulator doesn't tell much. Simulator is equivalent of physical space (256 m2) in Second Life, and is something like web server in 2D web. How much users can concurrently access one web server doesn't tell much about a website it hosts, and you can always add more web servers. Big Second Life events usually span multiple simulators anyway, and there are thousands of simulators.

This is way lesser than WoW which hit 1 million concurrent users in China alone in April 2008, but then again, all content in WoW is pretty much developed by Blizzard, so you don't really have an option to create content in WoW.

On the other hand, it's still a new area, and it's still relatively easy to create something original in LSL. In a year or two, it won't be as easy. In comparison, competition in fashion market in SL is much more fierce and it's really hard to top available products; great time to get into fashion in Second Life was about two years ago (it's not too late now, but you have to be really good).

Be aware that creating 3D content in Second Life usually involves more than programming. It's easy to cross into Photoshop/design, video, 3D architecture (Autocad), animation, marketing, etc. It's also likely that you'll work with fashion designers, real architects who're trying to prototype buildings in LSL, educators, and all kinds of different professions.

As Second Life now uses mono and LSL just on top I'd expect that on the long run there will also be "real" language such as C# or Python provided. It definitely would make sense and there also has been some questionaire about this some time ago.

I am also not sure what you actually want to do with it. If you are planning to develop web apps with it, I really would discourage that. Use it in SL because there is no other choice or simply use a real language outside SL.

As many people have pointed out, it's a lot of fun to write. So, given that it should, if you're the sort of person who reads stackoverflow, take a day or less to learn it, it's well worth the time just to assure yourself there's something to computing besides J2EE stacks.

Will you get a raft of job offers to come write LSL? No. Will you get rich selling scripted guns in Second Life? No.Will you continue to be on the front, and not the back, edge of the profession? yes.Will the experience broaden your horizons? Definitely

Simply put, there are too many unknowns. If, for example, you're unemployed and looking for a job, anything that increases your chances of finding a job is a Good Thing. There are probably not many LSL programmers out there. On the other hand, how many LSL job openings are there? You're probably better off learning a popular, in-depand language that you don't know yet, or honing your skills in those languages you already know.

I would bet the linden labs will soon be supporting more "real" languages than lsl. They have already moved to using Mono to turn its lsl into .net bytecode, it seems like a logical next step to allow other languages that can be compiled and run with mono to be used. Perhaps putting a library or two out to support the built in functions.

I'm with billyy on this one!I moved fairly easily into LSL programming from other languages and I use it for several reasons - to enhance my own SL experience; to push boundaries of what's possible in SL; to create items that lots of people buy (that's a double whammy btw - I make enough money to cover all the costs of the game and a bit more besides AND people seem to enjoy what I make!).

And finally there are many scripters in SL, most of whom are more than happy to share their expertise. A question posted in the Script Academy group will nearly always get instant, well-informed answers.

As a scripter and builder, I have found it as a nice easy medium to tinker with conceptual ideas that I may apply elsewhere. Also, with given knowledge, the language does apply outside of SL, and the load of said operations are taxing the SL servers and not your own PC.

For instance, you can script an object to gather information from other websites and send summaries of this information to you via email. This way, I can guarantee that I get the information regardless of my own computer's on/off status.

Bit late to the party on this one but ... for anyone coming across this now .... while the previous answers cover the 'business case' aspects, and also the benefit of just doing something different quite well, there is one thing to be aware of though which may affect your decision.

LSL has quite a number of "features" liable to drive one up the wall. Some are inherent in the language, others relate to bizarre decisions in the design of the built-in functions. [partial list at the end of this to give you the 'flavour']. Also you are working in a very limited environment where a single script is limited to 64k for code & data. You will need to hone your kludging skills!

I would strongly advise against getting involved unless you a specific SL related need to fill that cannot be filled another way. You will spend a lot of time coding your way around various SL specific problems over and above your particular application.

Aging and sleep are highly conserved biological processes, and deficiencies and disruptions in sleep and aging processes have been linked with many other diseases including obesity, diabetes, and cancer. Basic research on sleep and aging will not only provide a better understanding of their fundamental functions and underlying mechanisms, but it may also simultaneously help us understand their interactions to various other disorders. Studying the molecular components and neural circuits using a simple model organism such as Caenorhabditis elegans, with a completely mapped genome and nervous system and its various tools to interrogate gene and brain functions, will allow use to more directly examine sleep and aging processes, and provide significant insights into big questions such as why do we sleep, or how do we extend healthy lifespan?

The roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans is particularly suited for studying aging and sleep. It displays all behavioral hallmarks of sleep behavior as in humans, and its nervous system physiology is remarkably different between sleep and wake states. Many anatomical and functional changes that are observed in human aging are also seen in C. elegans. Its short life span of about three weeks and a rapid 2-3 day life-cycle coupled to its small size, allows for easy genetic manipulation and high-throughput screening of mutations in worm genes with altered sleep and aging phenotypes. Worm genes show strong homology with their human counterparts, particularly in genes that regulate sleep and aging. Many fundamental discoveries have been made with C. elegans such as RNA interference and genetic regulation of programmed cell death, and it likewise is a valuable discovery system for sleep and aging research.

Sleep and metabolic processes are intricately connected, and this association has important clinical implications; for example, short sleep is associated with obesity and type-2 diabetes. We investigate the genes and neurons that govern these sleep-metabolic interactions. Our recent studies have shown that the conserved salt-inducible kinase 3 (SIK3) pathway plays an important role in the metabolic regulation of different sleep states of C. elegans, such as developmentally-timed sleep (analogous to circadian sleep) and stress-induced sleep (analogous to sickness sleep). SIK3 proteins and their targets in worms, mice and human are highly conserved. Currently, we are investigating how SIK3 coordinates sleep-metabolic interactions using genetic and neural approaches as well as high-throughput behavioral analyses, and why this pathway is important for health.

Our lab is also interested in studying organismal aging, which could involve the progressive accumulation of deleterious molecular changes that could lead to age-related declines and diseases. We investigate a newly appreciated class of non-coding endogenous RNAs, called circular RNAs, which are mostly generated by back-splicing events from known protein-coding genes. Our recent studies have shown that these circRNAs show a progressive and massive accumulation during aging on a genome-wide level in C. elegans. No clear function is known for these age-accumulated circRNAs, or for most of the thousands of circRNAs discovered. Currently, we use next-generation sequencing approaches, genome-editing, and behavioral analysis to uncover regulatory mechanisms and functions of circRNAs in aging, and their possible role in age-related diseases.

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