just wondering

[Glen Canaday]

im restarting a very old project. it's a rather complex system, and as i
was doing some planning i decided it would be easier to graphically
represent the different modules so i could better imagine the way
they'll interact. I started with cubes, then eventually went to rings
and labeled everything with hovertext.

Which got me wondering and from there to curious. How do you all go
about visualizing these complex relationships? Do you draw them? "Prim
them out" like I just did?

--GC

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[Ian Peachey]

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interesting question ....

I tend to draw my stuff out, sometimes i use UML (for deployment, sequence charts, activity diagrams, state diagrams) ... I also write pseudo code sometimes.... I've resorted to flow-charts.   I'm note sure there is an answer to this ... personally I just use what seems to work... structure charts, data-flow diagrams ... For complex stuff I find a white board (so I can step back from the problem) helps...  I tend to get through a lot of paper at the early / 'formulating an idea' stages.  I tend to prototype complicated sections (to prove concepts / ideas). I'm quite careful about version control and configuration management of code.

:-) it's a very open question .... "how do you design stuff" :-) ... I suppose my answer really is I try to be as sure as I can be before I commit to writing 'real' code ... and then I iterate my development ... usually trying to flesh-out the framework / architecture of the system....coding a little and testing often.  Actually, taking the approach of developing a test harness in parallel with the system development works well. Also, having very clearly defined interfaces (and controlling the interfaces carefully) helps a great-deal ...but I guess that just comes back to getting the architecture right.

I don't know ... I just seem to try to be careful, and keep the code version controlled ... and do much testing. Personally, I see the test harness / system as an integral part of the system I'm designing.  Having good diagnostics (debug) helps too.

> Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:52:48 -0400
> From: gcanaday@...
> To: secondlifescripters@...
> Subject: just wondering
>
> im restarting a very old project. it's a rather complex system, and as i
> was doing some planning i decided it would be easier to graphically
> represent the different modules so i could better imagine the way
> they'll interact. I started with cubes, then eventually went to rings
> and labeled everything with hovertext.
>
> Which got me wondering and from there to curious. How do you all go
> about visualizing these complex relationships? Do you draw them? "Prim
> them out" like I just did?
>
> --GC
>
> _______________________________________________
> Click here to unsubscribe or manage your list subscription:
> https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/secondlifescripters

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[Boroondas Gupte]

Glen wrote:
> How do you all go
> about visualizing these complex relationships?
There's actually a standard for just that: UML
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Modeling_Language)

Its range of application is quite wide, so you'll probably never use
everything out of it for a single project. Also, when you're just doing
the visualization for yourself, you can use it just as fallback for when
you can't come up with a useful representation on your own.

Though I guess, when you have to work in teams already at design stage
(or if you want to present your design to someone else without having to
bother them with an actual implementation), it pays off to have a common
reference of what diagram element means what.

cheers
Boroondas
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[Ann Otoole]

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Depends. I sometimes use Walrus to study massive data sets that are conducive to acyclical graphs
http://www.caida.org/tools/visualization/walrus/

---

From: Boroondas Gupte <sllists@...>
To: Glen <gcanaday@...>
Cc: Second Life Scripters List <secondlifescripters@...>
Sent: Tue, October 13, 2009 6:33:04 PM
Subject: Re: just wondering

Glen wrote:
> How do you all go
> about visualizing these complex relationships?
There's actually a standard for just that: UML
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Modeling_Language)

Its range of application is quite wide, so you'll probably never use
everything out of it for a single project. Also, when you're just doing
the visualization for yourself, you can use it just as fallback for when
you can't come up with a useful representation on your own.

Though I guess, when you have to work in teams already at design stage
(or if you want to present your design to someone else without having to
bother them with an actual implementation), it pays off to have a common
reference of what diagram element means what.

cheers
Boroondas
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I guess my systems are not complex enough.

I divide it into identifiable tasks, establish a data base to cover
requirements, and write code modules.  I find flowchart planning takes
longer to plan than just do, and when I do plan, it gets changed so much it
was useless to start with.  But I've always been an assembly language
programmer so I'm not familiar with modern software project management.

AnnMarie Otoole,
(No relation to Ann Otoole) :)


----- Original Message -----
From: "Glen" <gcanaday@...>
To: "Second Life Scripters List" <secondlifescripters@...>
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 5:52 PM
Subject: just wondering

> im restarting a very old project. it's a rather complex system, and as i
> was doing some planning i decided it would be easier to graphically
> represent the different modules so i could better imagine the way
> they'll interact. I started with cubes, then eventually went to rings
> and labeled everything with hovertext.
>
> Which got me wondering and from there to curious. How do you all go
> about visualizing these complex relationships? Do you draw them? "Prim
> them out" like I just did?
>
> --GC

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[jbhancroft]

I've found that going through code and identifying groupings of what code sections
do helps me a lot. For my own code where I'm dusting it off, it's less of a problem,
as my memory helps (when it finally gets to it... latency can be a bear :).

The groupings (for me) are often around a portion of the project, such as
"external messaging", or "database access", etc. Having abstracted them
into these groupings, then I'll start to work through use case-type flows through
the code, to understand how things "normally work". Documentation skills being
what they are (mine included), that lets discover any interesting dependencies
in the code (data, or sequence of processing). As always, YMMV.

- JB

On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 11:14 PM, <AnnMarie@...> wrote:

I guess my systems are not complex enough.

I divide it into identifiable tasks, establish a data base to cover
requirements, and write code modules.  I find flowchart planning takes
longer to plan than just do, and when I do plan, it gets changed so much it
was useless to start with.  But I've always been an assembly language
programmer so I'm not familiar with modern software project management.

AnnMarie Otoole,
(No relation to Ann Otoole) :)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Glen" <gcanaday@...>
To: "Second Life Scripters List" <secondlifescripters@...>
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 5:52 PM
Subject: just wondering


> im restarting a very old project. it's a rather complex system, and as i
> was doing some planning i decided it would be easier to graphically
> represent the different modules so i could better imagine the way
> they'll interact. I started with cubes, then eventually went to rings
> and labeled everything with hovertext.
>
> Which got me wondering and from there to curious. How do you all go
> about visualizing these complex relationships? Do you draw them? "Prim
> them out" like I just did?
>
> --GC

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[Glen Canaday]

lol I've been in that boat too ;P Gave it up; too much typing (see?
COBOL and assembly ARE similar...! haha)

I was really just looking to see what other people do and maybe get a
discussion going. Seems like a lot of people here use a lot of different
tools to do the same job. Some of them seem like major, major overkill
to me, but to each their own. I was curious as to what "their own" might be!

I agree that flowcharting often takes me longer to work out than it
takes to actually write the program (or script, or.. etc). I usually
start with a spec sheet to remind myself what the code is supposed to be
doing, then if the system is complex enough I'll prim it out with a
module in each prim. My pseudocode ends up looking like LSL most of the
time.

--GC

AnnMarie@... wrote:

> I guess my systems are not complex enough.
>
> I divide it into identifiable tasks, establish a data base to cover
> requirements, and write code modules.  I find flowchart planning takes
> longer to plan than just do, and when I do plan, it gets changed so much it
> was useless to start with.  But I've always been an assembly language
> programmer so I'm not familiar with modern software project management.
>
> AnnMarie Otoole,
> (No relation to Ann Otoole) :)
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Glen" <gcanaday@...>
> To: "Second Life Scripters List" <secondlifescripters@...>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 5:52 PM
> Subject: just wondering
>
>
>  
>> im restarting a very old project. it's a rather complex system, and as i
>> was doing some planning i decided it would be easier to graphically
>> represent the different modules so i could better imagine the way
>> they'll interact. I started with cubes, then eventually went to rings
>> and labeled everything with hovertext.
>>
>> Which got me wondering and from there to curious. How do you all go
>> about visualizing these complex relationships? Do you draw them? "Prim
>> them out" like I just did?
>>
>> --GC
>>    
>
> _______________________________________________
> Click here to unsubscribe or manage your list subscription:
> https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/secondlifescripters
>
>  

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[ELQ Homewood]

Mostly, I open a new script and start typing lol
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[Bill Freese]

Howdy,
As I recall from my school days, we were required to flowchart before  
writing code. Every single student did the same thing, write the code  
and then the flowchart. In discussion with faculty about this, it  
became clear that none of them "started" with a flowchart, either.  
They did one at the moment when it seemed useful to them.

My projects are probably not complex enough, but there are times when  
I realize the mess I am writing has gotten out of hand and I reach  
for the pencil. Seems like primming them out would be extra effort,  
but could be useful for in-world collaborative projects. Anyone up  
for designing the 3D components for UML?

Bill Freese / Bill Friis
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Some interesting (empirical) thoughts on SL servers.  Yesterday my sim was
restarted.  It normally runs well above time dilution of 90% but yesterday
it was typically averaging about 0.8 with frequent dips as low as 0.3. There
were frequent crashes and FPS of 4 or less.  At one stage my list of groups
said "none" until I logged out and in.

I spent some time with a very helpful concierge person to track down the
problem.  Unfortunately for mainland sims they don't make the list of script
hogs available like they do on islands but she had access and we didn't find
any significant reason for the problem.  There have been virtually no
significant processing load changes in the sim for a long time.

We finally came to the conclusion we had a "bad server".  This has happened
in the past and they said they would "give me a new server" which cleared up
the problem.  Sim was restarted earlier today and dilution is back around
0.95.

Well it appears (and it makes sense) that servers are allocated dynamically,
you don't have a dedicated piece of hardware.so every time you have a
restart you are on a different server some of which are BAD.  The clue is to
keep getting your sim restarted until you get a good one and stick with it
(until you get reset involuntarily, then repeat).  Stick someone else with
the bad one!

I have vehicles that traverse sim boundaries.  It is striking to see the
different script processing speeds with no apparent reason.  An empty sim
may be running super slow while a complex sim is running fast.  My vehicle
update is timed for about 0.5 seconds.  Some sims have the update processed
in 0.1 seconds.  Some sims take 10 seconds for a navigation cycle, a 100:1
difference.  I correct for this to some extent by adjusting the length of
the step for the time dilation so the vehicle has a more or less constant
velocity but it gets very "jumpy" in slow sims.

I assume it a mix of new and old servers and it is just luck, or faulty
ones, or communication bottlenecks? For now restarting until I get a good
one is plan A.

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[Eloise Pasteur]

I tend to chunk my code according to a use-diagram.

For example, I'll write a list of functions and then associate each of  
those with a way for the user to access them. Those tie to events  
pretty directly and give me chunks of a decent size to code directly,  
and also give me milestones where I can see the progress I've made and  
check it's all going OK.

Of course that means being able to look at a big list of things all  
tied to (say) the listen event and making decisions about dialog  
boxes, spoken commands without dialog and so on.

El.

On 14 Oct 2009, at 18:29, Bill Freese wrote:

> Howdy,
> As I recall from my school days, we were required to flowchart before
> writing code. Every single student did the same thing, write the code
> and then the flowchart. In discussion with faculty about this, it
> became clear that none of them "started" with a flowchart, either.
> They did one at the moment when it seemed useful to them.
>
> My projects are probably not complex enough, but there are times when
> I realize the mess I am writing has gotten out of hand and I reach
> for the pencil. Seems like primming them out would be extra effort,
> but could be useful for in-world collaborative projects. Anyone up
> for designing the 3D components for UML?
>
> Bill Freese / Bill Friis
> _______________________________________________
> Click here to unsubscribe or manage your list subscription:
> https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/secondlifescripters

http://educationaldesigns.eloisepasteur.net/
http://eloisepasteur.net/blog/
SL Education collaboration forum: http://forum.eloisepasteur.net/



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[Dale Innis]

In SL, I have scattered and hard-to-understand conversations with
people about what they want, and then I forget to do anything about it
for awhile, and then when I remember I toss together some code late at
night, possibly test it, send them a copy, get largely
incomprehensible replies, make various changes, send them another
copy, and eventually they say "thanks!" and sometimes even send me
money.  :)  When coding for myself I do roughly the same thing, except
that I am on both sides of the late-night conversations.

That is because for me SL is just fun.  In RL, we have a bit more Process...
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[Kelly Linden]

It is not hardware that makes a host "bad".  It is neighbors.

Our current hardware is 4 CPUs per box, and while "full" regions get a dedicated CPU they don't get a dedicated box.  It is possible for a memory hog of a region to cause performance issues for the other regions on the host.

* Restarting your region or getting it restarted will not change what type of hardware your region is on.

* Most of the time a restart puts you back on the same host

* It usually takes a *really* misbehaving region, or to be unlucky with several misbehaving regions to see the performance issues you describe.

* Homesteads and OpenSpace regions compound this problem by having 4x as many regions running on each host, which is why they have more severe limits on prim and agent counts.

* Please make sure your region isn't the problem before going on a restart craze, I think Anne did a good job here.  Be sure no new content is to blame, it is far more common for content on the region to cause these issues than to be effected by neighbors.  

** In other words restarting the region should not be the first step if your region slows down.  It should probably be more like plan B or C.

* To be absolutely clear, neighbors in this sense are not (usually) geographically neighbors in SL, I just mean they share the host machine.

I don't believe any of the information above is new, but hopefully it will clear up the issue and prevent some FUD.  We are aware of this issue, we do some work to mitigate the effects and we are always thinking about further ways to address it.

 - Kelly

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 10:29 AM, <AnnMarie@...> wrote:

Some interesting (empirical) thoughts on SL servers.  Yesterday my sim was
restarted.  It normally runs well above time dilution of 90% but yesterday
it was typically averaging about 0.8 with frequent dips as low as 0.3. There
were frequent crashes and FPS of 4 or less.  At one stage my list of groups
said "none" until I logged out and in.

I spent some time with a very helpful concierge person to track down the
problem.  Unfortunately for mainland sims they don't make the list of script
hogs available like they do on islands but she had access and we didn't find
any significant reason for the problem.  There have been virtually no
significant processing load changes in the sim for a long time.

We finally came to the conclusion we had a "bad server".  This has happened
in the past and they said they would "give me a new server" which cleared up
the problem.  Sim was restarted earlier today and dilution is back around
0.95.

Well it appears (and it makes sense) that servers are allocated dynamically,
you don't have a dedicated piece of hardware.so every time you have a
restart you are on a different server some of which are BAD.  The clue is to
keep getting your sim restarted until you get a good one and stick with it
(until you get reset involuntarily, then repeat).  Stick someone else with
the bad one!

I have vehicles that traverse sim boundaries.  It is striking to see the
different script processing speeds with no apparent reason.  An empty sim
may be running super slow while a complex sim is running fast.  My vehicle
update is timed for about 0.5 seconds.  Some sims have the update processed
in 0.1 seconds.  Some sims take 10 seconds for a navigation cycle, a 100:1
difference.  I correct for this to some extent by adjusting the length of
the step for the time dilation so the vehicle has a more or less constant
velocity but it gets very "jumpy" in slow sims.

I assume it a mix of new and old servers and it is just luck, or faulty
ones, or communication bottlenecks? For now restarting until I get a good
one is plan A.

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[ordinal.malaprop]

I only diagram and flowchart if I find that I do not understand what  
is going on, and things are not working (or if somebody *wants* a  
diagram, which is not very common). In fact if I diagram I will  
probably use a pen and notepad and scribble something illegible,  
because it is there to focus my thoughts, not actually be any sort of  
documentation.

In general I find writing the actual code considerably easier than  
working out what code needs to be written - with this in mind most of  
my time is spent mindmapping and using outliners to break down what it  
is I am trying to do into steps, and compiling source material and  
documents. By the time I am ready to (or need to) write actual code it  
can normally be produced in hours, if that.

---

I don't look at what I do day-to-day as being "coding", really. I used  
to do jobs where I was an interchangeable code monkey, producing  
isolated programs to be plugged into a system that somebody else had  
designed, but that drove me mad.

When constructing one's own entire system or product there is so much  
more that needs to be done, most of it being communicating with other  
people, and sitting down and writing code is something that isn't  
necessarily done all that often. (It can be quite a diversion really.)

If one actually understands the whole system in all its facets, one  
doesn't really need to mess around with specific techniques to manage  
just the code, in my experience. If the code can't be planned and  
organised using the methods you are using to manage the whole project,  
you need to improve your methods.

---

As a footnote, my most used tool is a freeform database/note-taking/
outlining Mac application called Circus Ponies Notebook, which can  
have arbitrary file attachments (editable inline) mixed in with text,  
clippings, images, chatlogs, task lists, tags, voice annotations and  
so on. It has a somewhat cute "spiral bound notebook" UI, but properly  
used it's a terrifically powerful piece of software for getting  
everything shipshape.


On 14 Oct 2009, at 17:20, Glen wrote:

> lol I've been in that boat too ;P Gave it up; too much typing (see?
> COBOL and assembly ARE similar...! haha)
>
> I was really just looking to see what other people do and maybe get a
> discussion going. Seems like a lot of people here use a lot of  
> different
> tools to do the same job. Some of them seem like major, major overkill
> to me, but to each their own. I was curious as to what "their own"  
> might be!
>
> I agree that flowcharting often takes me longer to work out than it
> takes to actually write the program (or script, or.. etc). I usually
> start with a spec sheet to remind myself what the code is supposed  
> to be
> doing, then if the system is complex enough I'll prim it out with a
> module in each prim. My pseudocode ends up looking like LSL most of  
> the
> time.
>
> --GC
>
> AnnMarie@... wrote:
>> I guess my systems are not complex enough.
>>
>> I divide it into identifiable tasks, establish a data base to cover
>> requirements, and write code modules.  I find flowchart planning  
>> takes
>> longer to plan than just do, and when I do plan, it gets changed so  
>> much it
>> was useless to start with.  But I've always been an assembly language
>> programmer so I'm not familiar with modern software project  
>> management.
>>
>> AnnMarie Otoole,
>> (No relation to Ann Otoole) :)
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Glen" <gcanaday@...>
>> To: "Second Life Scripters List" <secondlifescripters@...
>> >
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 5:52 PM
>> Subject: just wondering
>>
>>
>>
>>> im restarting a very old project. it's a rather complex system,  
>>> and as i
>>> was doing some planning i decided it would be easier to graphically
>>> represent the different modules so i could better imagine the way
>>> they'll interact. I started with cubes, then eventually went to  
>>> rings
>>> and labeled everything with hovertext.
>>>
>>> Which got me wondering and from there to curious. How do you all go
>>> about visualizing these complex relationships? Do you draw them?  
>>> "Prim
>>> them out" like I just did?
>>>
>>> --GC
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Click here to unsubscribe or manage your list subscription:
>> https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/secondlifescripters
>>
>>
>
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[jbhancroft]

Hi Kelly,

Great info.  Since you're talk about "cpu neighbors", it would be nice to be able to check that in-world.  I know I can get the RL server-name my Region is running on. How can I find out the names of the other Regions that are my "cpu neighbors"? A quick check of FPS and Time Dilation might show the problem to be at the server-level, instead of a Region-specific issue.

Thanks for your help.

- JB

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Kelly Linden <kelly@...> wrote:

It is not hardware that makes a host "bad".  It is neighbors.

Our current hardware is 4 CPUs per box, and while "full" regions get a dedicated CPU they don't get a dedicated box.  It is possible for a memory hog of a region to cause performance issues for the other regions on the host.

* Restarting your region or getting it restarted will not change what type of hardware your region is on.

* Most of the time a restart puts you back on the same host

* It usually takes a *really* misbehaving region, or to be unlucky with several misbehaving regions to see the performance issues you describe.

* Homesteads and OpenSpace regions compound this problem by having 4x as many regions running on each host, which is why they have more severe limits on prim and agent counts.

* Please make sure your region isn't the problem before going on a restart craze, I think Anne did a good job here.  Be sure no new content is to blame, it is far more common for content on the region to cause these issues than to be effected by neighbors.  

** In other words restarting the region should not be the first step if your region slows down.  It should probably be more like plan B or C.

* To be absolutely clear, neighbors in this sense are not (usually) geographically neighbors in SL, I just mean they share the host machine.

I don't believe any of the information above is new, but hopefully it will clear up the issue and prevent some FUD.  We are aware of this issue, we do some work to mitigate the effects and we are always thinking about further ways to address it.

 - Kelly

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 10:29 AM, <AnnMarie@...> wrote:

Some interesting (empirical) thoughts on SL servers.  Yesterday my sim was
restarted.  It normally runs well above time dilution of 90% but yesterday
it was typically averaging about 0.8 with frequent dips as low as 0.3. There
were frequent crashes and FPS of 4 or less.  At one stage my list of groups
said "none" until I logged out and in.

I spent some time with a very helpful concierge person to track down the
problem.  Unfortunately for mainland sims they don't make the list of script
hogs available like they do on islands but she had access and we didn't find
any significant reason for the problem.  There have been virtually no
significant processing load changes in the sim for a long time.

We finally came to the conclusion we had a "bad server".  This has happened
in the past and they said they would "give me a new server" which cleared up
the problem.  Sim was restarted earlier today and dilution is back around
0.95.

Well it appears (and it makes sense) that servers are allocated dynamically,
you don't have a dedicated piece of hardware.so every time you have a
restart you are on a different server some of which are BAD.  The clue is to
keep getting your sim restarted until you get a good one and stick with it
(until you get reset involuntarily, then repeat).  Stick someone else with
the bad one!

I have vehicles that traverse sim boundaries.  It is striking to see the
different script processing speeds with no apparent reason.  An empty sim
may be running super slow while a complex sim is running fast.  My vehicle
update is timed for about 0.5 seconds.  Some sims have the update processed
in 0.1 seconds.  Some sims take 10 seconds for a navigation cycle, a 100:1
difference.  I correct for this to some extent by adjusting the length of
the step for the time dilation so the vehicle has a more or less constant
velocity but it gets very "jumpy" in slow sims.

I assume it a mix of new and old servers and it is just luck, or faulty
ones, or communication bottlenecks? For now restarting until I get a good
one is plan A.

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[Digital Rebel]

would be great of we could get some better diagnostic tools so we don't have to guess and reboot

On Oct 14, 2009, at 2:27 PM, Kelly Linden <kelly@...> wrote:

It is not hardware that makes a host "bad".  It is neighbors.

Our current hardware is 4 CPUs per box, and while "full" regions get a dedicated CPU they don't get a dedicated box.  It is possible for a memory hog of a region to cause performance issues for the other regions on the host.

* Restarting your region or getting it restarted will not change what type of hardware your region is on.

* Most of the time a restart puts you back on the same host

* It usually takes a *really* misbehaving region, or to be unlucky with several misbehaving regions to see the performance issues you describe.

* Homesteads and OpenSpace regions compound this problem by having 4x as many regions running on each host, which is why they have more severe limits on prim and agent counts.

* Please make sure your region isn't the problem before going on a restart craze, I think Anne did a good job here.  Be sure no new content is to blame, it is far more common for content on the region to cause these issues than to be effected by neighbors.  

** In other words restarting the region should not be the first step if your region slows down.  It should probably be more like plan B or C.

* To be absolutely clear, neighbors in this sense are not (usually) geographically neighbors in SL, I just mean they share the host machine.

I don't believe any of the information above is new, but hopefully it will clear up the issue and prevent some FUD.  We are aware of this issue, we do some work to mitigate the effects and we are always thinking about further ways to address it.

 - Kelly

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 10:29 AM, <AnnMarie@...> wrote:

Some interesting (empirical) thoughts on SL servers.  Yesterday my sim was
restarted.  It normally runs well above time dilution of 90% but yesterday
it was typically averaging about 0.8 with frequent dips as low as 0.3. There
were frequent crashes and FPS of 4 or less.  At one stage my list of groups
said "none" until I logged out and in.

I spent some time with a very helpful concierge person to track down the
problem.  Unfortunately for mainland sims they don't make the list of script
hogs available like they do on islands but she had access and we didn't find
any significant reason for the problem.  There have been virtually no
significant processing load changes in the sim for a long time.

We finally came to the conclusion we had a "bad server".  This has happened
in the past and they said they would "give me a new server" which cleared up
the problem.  Sim was restarted earlier today and dilution is back around
0.95.

Well it appears (and it makes sense) that servers are allocated dynamically,
you don't have a dedicated piece of hardware.so every time you have a
restart you are on a different server some of which are BAD.  The clue is to
keep getting your sim restarted until you get a good one and stick with it
(until you get reset involuntarily, then repeat).  Stick someone else with
the bad one!

I have vehicles that traverse sim boundaries.  It is striking to see the
different script processing speeds with no apparent reason.  An empty sim
may be running super slow while a complex sim is running fast.  My vehicle
update is timed for about 0.5 seconds.  Some sims have the update processed
in 0.1 seconds.  Some sims take 10 seconds for a navigation cycle, a 100:1
difference.  I correct for this to some extent by adjusting the length of
the step for the time dilation so the vehicle has a more or less constant
velocity but it gets very "jumpy" in slow sims.

I assume it a mix of new and old servers and it is just luck, or faulty
ones, or communication bottlenecks? For now restarting until I get a good
one is plan A.

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[Stickman-2]

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 2:17 PM, digital rebel
<digital.rebel.18@...> wrote:
> would be great of we could get some better diagnostic tools so we don't have
> to guess and reboot

Seconded.

We're getting some awesome new tools with the next scripting update, I
hear. But that wouldn't solve this specific issue.

-Stickman
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[Glen Canaday]

Yeah, primming it really IS a little extra effort. I basically use it
like ordinal uses pen & paper for thought organization and focus. For
the current project it helped me to see what the relationships between
the different parts needs to be. I was coding down the wrong track and I
knew it, but I couldn't put my finger on where.

I used it like I'd use UML - took a couple of minutes to do, I saw my
mistake after looking at the prim-diagram for a little while, and violá,
I'm back on track. It also spurred me on to ask about it, haha.

I always hated having to flowchart. My teachers never did it, either. I
also wrote it up afterward just to get the credit for having done it, haha.

--GC

Bill Freese wrote:

> Howdy,
> As I recall from my school days, we were required to flowchart before  
> writing code. Every single student did the same thing, write the code  
> and then the flowchart. In discussion with faculty about this, it  
> became clear that none of them "started" with a flowchart, either.  
> They did one at the moment when it seemed useful to them.
>
> My projects are probably not complex enough, but there are times when  
> I realize the mess I am writing has gotten out of hand and I reach  
> for the pencil. Seems like primming them out would be extra effort,  
> but could be useful for in-world collaborative projects. Anyone up  
> for designing the 3D components for UML?
>
> Bill Freese / Bill Friis
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>  

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[Glen Canaday]

Here, here! i rather second that. I'm not a sim owner so I'll never see
it, but it does sound like a good idea. Then you can just TP to a
neighbor and test its performance, then to the next one to find the club
with the grand opening and the 45 people there, lol.

--GC

JB Hancroft wrote:

> Hi Kelly,
>
> Great info.  Since you're talk about "cpu neighbors", it would be nice
> to be able to check that in-world.  I know I can get the RL
> server-name my Region is running on. How can I find out the names of
> the other Regions that are my "cpu neighbors"? A quick check of FPS
> and Time Dilation might show the problem to be at the server-level,
> instead of a Region-specific issue.
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> - JB
>
> On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Kelly Linden <kelly@...
> <mailto:kelly@...>> wrote:
>
>     It is not hardware that makes a host "bad".  It is neighbors.
>
>     Our current hardware is 4 CPUs per box, and while "full" regions
>     get a dedicated CPU they don't get a dedicated box.  It is
>     possible for a memory hog of a region to cause performance issues
>     for the other regions on the host.
>
>     * Restarting your region or getting it restarted will not change
>     what type of hardware your region is on.
>     * Most of the time a restart puts you back on the same host
>     * It usually takes a *really* misbehaving region, or to be unlucky
>     with several misbehaving regions to see the performance issues you
>     describe.
>     * Homesteads and OpenSpace regions compound this problem by having
>     4x as many regions running on each host, which is why they have
>     more severe limits on prim and agent counts.
>     * Please make sure your region isn't the problem before going on a
>     restart craze, I think Anne did a good job here.  Be sure no new
>     content is to blame, it is far more common for content on the
>     region to cause these issues than to be effected by neighbors.  
>     ** In other words restarting the region should not be the first
>     step if your region slows down.  It should probably be more like
>     plan B or C.
>     * To be absolutely clear, neighbors in this sense are not
>     (usually) geographically neighbors in SL, I just mean they share
>     the host machine.
>
>     I don't believe any of the information above is new, but hopefully
>     it will clear up the issue and prevent some FUD.  We are aware of
>     this issue, we do some work to mitigate the effects and we are
>     always thinking about further ways to address it.
>
>      - Kelly
>
>
>     On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 10:29 AM, <AnnMarie@...
>     <mailto:AnnMarie@...>> wrote:
>
>         Some interesting (empirical) thoughts on SL servers.
>          Yesterday my sim was
>         restarted.  It normally runs well above time dilution of 90%
>         but yesterday
>         it was typically averaging about 0.8 with frequent dips as low
>         as 0.3. There
>         were frequent crashes and FPS of 4 or less.  At one stage my
>         list of groups
>         said "none" until I logged out and in.
>
>         I spent some time with a very helpful concierge person to
>         track down the
>         problem.  Unfortunately for mainland sims they don't make the
>         list of script
>         hogs available like they do on islands but she had access and
>         we didn't find
>         any significant reason for the problem.  There have been
>         virtually no
>         significant processing load changes in the sim for a long time.
>
>         We finally came to the conclusion we had a "bad server".  This
>         has happened
>         in the past and they said they would "give me a new server"
>         which cleared up
>         the problem.  Sim was restarted earlier today and dilution is
>         back around
>         0.95.
>
>         Well it appears (and it makes sense) that servers are
>         allocated dynamically,
>         you don't have a dedicated piece of hardware.so every time you
>         have a
>         restart you are on a different server some of which are BAD.
>          The clue is to
>         keep getting your sim restarted until you get a good one and
>         stick with it
>         (until you get reset involuntarily, then repeat).  Stick
>         someone else with
>         the bad one!
>
>         I have vehicles that traverse sim boundaries.  It is striking
>         to see the
>         different script processing speeds with no apparent reason.
>          An empty sim
>         may be running super slow while a complex sim is running fast.
>          My vehicle
>         update is timed for about 0.5 seconds.  Some sims have the
>         update processed
>         in 0.1 seconds.  Some sims take 10 seconds for a navigation
>         cycle, a 100:1
>         difference.  I correct for this to some extent by adjusting
>         the length of
>         the step for the time dilation so the vehicle has a more or
>         less constant
>         velocity but it gets very "jumpy" in slow sims.
>
>         I assume it a mix of new and old servers and it is just luck,
>         or faulty
>         ones, or communication bottlenecks? For now restarting until I
>         get a good
>         one is plan A.
>
>         _______________________________________________
>         Click here to unsubscribe or manage your list subscription:
>         https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/secondlifescripters
>
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
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>     https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/secondlifescripters
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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[Very Keynes]

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 11:54 PM, Glen <gcanaday@...> wrote:
> Here, here! i rather second that. I'm not a sim owner so I'll never see
> it, but it does sound like a good idea. Then you can just TP to a
> neighbor and test its performance, then to the next one to find the club
> with the grand opening and the 45 people there, lol.
>

45? we had 76 last Thursday, I feel sorry for the neighbors, but the
sim held up well and it was only for 90 Min.
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