in VR

We’re starting a developer blog

From Vircadia: link to original post

Written by Dale Glass

Jan 4, 2021

Hello, Dale here!

We’ve had several requests during meetings to be a bit more public about what we do and what our long term plans are. I personally go over some of my work at the developer meetings I hold, but not everyone attends those, so I’ll be trying to post here regularly about what I’m up to.

A little about myself

I’m a software developer who’s been employed for more than two decades at this point. I’ve switched from doing software development, to Linux system administration, to software development again. I did a fair amount of Windows work early on, but fairly quickly found I like Linux much more, and these days use it almost exclusively and my Windows skills are very rusty.

I’ve joined Second Life almost 15 years ago, and spent a lot of time scripting in it. Eventually I decided it was stagnating a bit and started looking for greener pastures, and found High Fidelity. Unfortunately by the time I found about it, HiFi was having a hard time and shortly after my arrival it shut down. But the tech was very good in my opinion, and I thought it’d be a pity to let such good work go to waste, so I instantly joined the effort to keep it alive, which eventually became Vircadia.

I dabble a bit in electronics, metal working, 3D printing and photography.

What I do

I’m mostly focused on Linux development, making fixes and improvements to ensure that Vircadia builds and works on Linux. Here’s a list of what I do:

  • vircadia-builder, a handy script to build Vircadia on Linux and generate AppImage packages
  • Host the Hub
  • Host assets needed to build the code (source packages and such)
  • Host assets used by domains and the interface
  • Keep backups of public HiFi files
  • Work on the Vircadia code by submitting my own PRs
  • Review PRs
  • Lead developer meetings on Sundays
  • Moderate Discord
  • Speak at conventions

My long term plans

Here are some things I’d like to achieve eventually, in no particular order. Of course not everything may work out, and other people may get some of these things done before I get to them, but I’ll definitely try:

  • Linux crash reporting
  • An improvement to the audio encoder, which will hopefully allow more people per server
  • Improvements to the build system
  • Better screen sharing
  • A cleaner build on Linux
  • Internationalization support
  • Perhaps a switch to a different scripting engine

Given that I hold a regular job completely unrelated to Vircadia, it make time to get through such a list, but so far I think I’ve been making some fairly good progress.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I’ll try to post regular updates about what I’m up to, and a post on how the Hub scales to keep up with the load should be coming soon.