Second Life Basic mode seems to have progressed with what one might call unseemly haste. One day from alpha to beta, and just eleven more from beta to production, it having been released today. Mind you, only seven of those eleven days were working days.
That might not seem so bad if there had been any communication during the process.
Right now, though, the only major difference that I can discern in the new viewer thus far is that it does not actually work – at least not from where I’m sitting. It’s the only viewer that Linden Lab has put out in my memory that fell at the starting gate.
It appears to be looking up a DNS name ( _https._tcp.login.agni.lindenlab.com ) and failing – because it doesn’t exist – but where other viewers attempt to resolve additional DNS names when this one (invariably) fails, this particular viewer doesn’t seem to have the knack, and just resorts to whining.
Every other viewer works just fine for the moment.
I wish I could say I was astonished.
UPDATE: Rod Humble, Linden Lab’s new CEO, (and thus, Linden Lab itself) is aware of the problem. Rod messaged me to say that “the team is looking into it, and will post an update on status or a fix within 24 hours”.
>> It’s easy to assume that a programmer is a programmer, and that a programmer who deals with databases could work with user-interfaces with equal facility, just as many assume that a manager is a manager and can apply their skills as easily to managing a company that builds virtual worlds, or sells potted plants. In both management and programming you have superstars who can turn their hands easily to many things, but they’re very rare. Regular folks, even very skilled and talented ones, tend to specialise more. >>
Oh my! Thank you, thank you, thank you for saying this!
Lots of people don’t understand this, even some of those working in the field. I had been told once by someone working in IT development that as a .NET programmer, working with VB6 would be a piece of cake. No way! They are entirely different ways of programming.
@Tateru: Ahh… DNS SRV. Learn something new every day.
Still.. I think LL has left the ‘don’t really care about SL but adding enough stuff to keep it enticing’ mode to the ‘actively trying to demolish the place’ mode.
And it sucks too, because sim border crossings were just starting to be liveable again.
@Solo
A Linden engineer just got in touch with me. I did some diagnosis, found the problem, figured out what was causing it, and why, and how to work around it; and I’ve let him know.
The problem lies with the Web-proxy preference setting, and appears to be a resolver issue where the viewer treats a UQDN for a web-proxy as an FQDN – which then (fairly obviously) fails to resolve (or in ultra-rare cases would resolve to something unexpected and that wouldn’t work).
Who would be using a UQDN in that field? Why… me, for one, and probably many educational and corporate nets.
The workaround is to use an FQDN or an IP-address – but really, it’s strangely non-orthogonal behaviour from something that just shouldn’t be behaving that way.
The actual release was almost identical to the original Beta1 and lacked the fixes in Beta3 – I am all in favour of rapid release but they really need to fix LL’s QA and release processes to make that work. It shouldn’t have to be up to the more clued-up residents like Tateru to point these things out, or tell them how to fix it.
@Wayfinder
Rod had to be either experienced or new to Second Life, I understand why most would prefer he’d have been the former, but I don’t think its bad at all that he turned out to be the latter.
Sometimes its not best if a decision maker is all-knowing about their product. Their potential and new customers aren’t after all, so how could they relate? In my experiences the best software comes from people who’re solving problems for themselves, when it just so happens millions of others have those same problems, so if Rod has the same shared vantage point as the kind of people Second Life needs most urgently, newcomers, that’s great. It’s not a handicap, it’s a bonus.
Eventually he’ll be as experienced with Second Life as you or I, that’s a given, but right now he has a unique position we’re years removed from and that’s something I believe is more than worth being patient with.
Is the layout of this page messed up for anyone else?
@Ezra: I totally agree there are advantages to him coming in as a “newb” and learning the ropes as he goes along. Will he ever become as experienced as you and I with SL? I doubt it; the nature of his job won’t allow him to become nearly as acquainted with the actual product as we are. That’s fine though, he doesn’t have to be. All he needs is to have a general idea of what’s going on, to be in touch with customers, and the ability to add 2+2 and get the right answer.
So yeah, him coming in as a total newb does have advantages. Except… that won’t be what happens. Because he won’t come in as we did; he’ll come in under the Linden Lab “here, let us show you how to do that” eye, will receive support the likes of which we can only dream of, probably won’t have to deal with griefers at all, will be flooded by the LL propaganda machine… and will very likely see very little of what life is like down here in the trenches.
So at that point, the only thing he’s got going for him is what he brings with him– which is admittedly considerable. Will that be enough to turn the ship around before it hits the iceberg? We’ll see. We haven’t seen much success with either Kingdon or Rosedale. Maybe Rod will be able to do better… or maybe he won’t. Time and Linden Lab “we say so” mindset will tell.
I must admit, if this product launch had been made today, with a full explanation of what it does and doesn’t do, people would have been wondering if they could believe the notice.
Wolf, I haven’t really had much of a chance to examine this “product” extensively. Was wondering if you could do just that– do you have a moment to list here what it is, what it does, the pros and cons etc, just as a review / overview? I think that might be helpful for the blog record. Thanks! : )