Review by Timeless Prototype for Scripting Your World: The Official Guide to Second Life Scripting Rating:
Aesthetically, I personally found this book is very well laid out, colourful and easy on the eyes. It contains many screenshots and even explanatory diagrams. The structure allows the advanced LSL scripter to scan read to use the book as a decent reference and is complete with keyword indexes in the appendices. All levels of LSL scripters will enjoy the side notes on many pages that explain the aspects being discussed in more detail and gives build notes and useful tips.
The content of the book itself starts with a decent introduction to the LSL scripting language. It gives seasoned programmers the information they need to get started and yet at the same time provides detailed explanations of the syntax for beginners to begin to understand.
The book goes on to cover many various examples with detailed explanations, achieving what I feel is a nice balance with the amount of example code to theory. To take one chapter as an example, it explains the settings of vehicle parameters, handling input controls from the user and setting the position and rotation of the viewer’s camera plus example code to get started with. It is enough to get going on scripting a vehicle in LSL. Advancements in this area would come from experimentation by the LSL scripter herself and by reading the book’s tabulated explanations of all the vehicle parameters and functions. The side notes in this chapter include a useful time-saving warning when combining two of the mechanisms for moving objects and also a note on other scripts to look out for in world and even a link to a wiki that hosts complete sailboat scripts.
What I particularly enjoyed about the book was discovering how others have used LSL scripting. I’d fully expect this book to inspire the LSL scripter into creating something that they may not have tried without having had the book to explain the workflow to them.
Overall, a very respectable and professional book. I’m very pleased with the copy I have.
Review by MeAm Okelly for Scripting Your World: The Official Guide to Second Life Scripting Rating:
This book helped me a lot in my struggle with Lindens Script Language. The first Chapter is a good review of the language. The next chapters demonstrate how and where to use scripts. Explanations of the examples include object-building instructions. I have used many of the example scripts, which are available in Second Life. For a “hacker” like me who lacks the patience to really study the language rules – this is a perfect resource!
Review by J. graber for Scripting Your World: The Official Guide to Second Life Scripting Rating:
This book is an excellent guide to scripting. I was able to figure out how to script shapes very effectively. It is a well designed and laid out book. Another feature is the enthusiasm of the authors. They are responsive to emails and post other material on their web site.
Review by William F. Zachmann for Scripting Your World: The Official Guide to Second Life Scripting Rating:
This is, by far, the best book yet on writing LSL scripts for Second Life! It is easily the cleanest, most straightforward and most comprehensible presentation of the Linden Scripting Language you will find anywhere. Chapter 1 is a fantastic summary reference as well. If you are interested in scripting in Second Life, you must get this book! If you are not, you should be! A wonderful world awaits you!
All the best,
William F Zachmann, President and CEO, Canopus Research Inc.; Senior Analyst, Enterprise Social Networking, Wainhouse Research; a.k.a. Arifi Saeed, Research Director, SL, Canopus Research Inc.
Review by Gift Card Recipient for Scripting Your World: The Official Guide to Second Life Scripting Rating:
Glad to get the scripting SL book…This has helped with basic understanding of the scripts and how they work…Was hoping for a little more on timed, multiple animation info “but”…we can’t have it all
There is very little How TO info in the book if you are not planning to create objects and try to make money in the sim. If you are just a visitor who wants a pleasant time sightseeing and chatting with others, then this book will disappoint.
A large part of the book is a tribute to selected SL residents who have made money in the sim. Nice for them, but who else cares?
Another chapter describes interesting specific locations in SL. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the sites are obsolete and gone.
Even if you are interested in learning scripting language to try to sell products in SL, there have got to be better instructional manuals out there than this.
When I had real HowTo questions, the answer was rarely found in the book.
I truly felt I had wasted my money in purchasing this book. You can learn as much useful info at the initial Help Islands and inworld tutorials once you enter SL.
Review by Christopher J. Carella for Second Life: The Official Guide Rating:
My copy of Second Life: The Official Guide arrived in the mail yesterday and I’m pleased. The easiest way to summarize the book, is that it acts as the manual that would come with SL if it were shrink-wrapped software.
Mark Wallace’s, Chapter 3: The Grand Tour is fantastic. Before the book arrived I spent hours with a friend yesterday talking about Second Life. He had an account, had logged in, more or less understood what it was but didn’t know where to find cool things. This chapter covers that turf. New and seasoned residents both will find a lot of value in this chapter. It covers everything from The Shelter and Anwr Oil Rig to Something Awful and Gor. I’ll be spending a few hours going back through these places which I’ve toured in the past. This chapter alone makes this a worthy gift for someone you want to become a Second Lifer.
Cory Ondrejka’s LSL chapter is also great. This is the well written, professional introduction to LSL that was sorely needed. Non-programmers will find the examples a great place to start and programmers will be welcomed with the standard sections like “What are types?” that they are used to from other languages.
There is certainly a fair bit of nostalgia for us oldbies. Hamlet has a chapter profiling a number of residents and provides a history lesson in another. The history lesson is a must read for new residents and a stroll down memory lane for the rest of us.
Finally, Wallace closes the book out with a step towards 3PointD.
If you know someone new to Second Life, want to encourage someone to log in in 2007, or otherwise love all things Second Life, you should pick up this book!
Review by David M. Scott for Second Life: The Official Guide Rating:
Wow. Second Life: The Official Guide is just great. But I need to explain where I am coming from.
I’m happy to be a reasonably early technology adopter and I usually practice the “jump in and try it” mode. For example, I figured out my blog in 2004 without any guidance. But as I was thinking about Second Life as a brand new resident a few months ago, I was sort of feeling like this isn’t a new technology metaphor, it’s a travel metaphor. Second Life is a new place that needs to be learned more than it is a new technology that needs to be learned.
I’ve traveled the world a great deal. For example, I lived in Japan for six years and Hong Kong for two as Asia Marketing Director for a big American company. My entire career has been as an internationalist. I’ve visited some 40 or 50 countries on business or pleasure and logged several million air miles. Before departing for somewhere like Bombay or Bangkok or Brussels, I always purchase a travel guide and read it on the plane. I just like knowing the basics like what’s a funky old restaurant to try, how to hail a cab, and how much to tip (or not).
What Second Life: The Official Guide does is act as your travel guide to a new place. The authors got that right. Thanks! Just like a great Frommer’s travel guide, the book is chock full of places to go, people to see, etiquette, currency exchange, what to wear, and more. In fact, the publisher, Wiley, could do a version of this book as an actual Frommer’s guide, to complement the Sybex computer book imprint that Second Life: The Official Guide is published with. Wouldn’t that be cool!?
Yes, there is also a boatload of stuff for Second Life experts including details on the Second Life scripting language. This stuff is beyond me but if it is as well written as the parts that I devoured, than even long time residents will get a great deal of practical information from the book. Several of the authors work at Linden Labs, the company behind Second Life so it must be accurate.
Thanks for doing this book, guys. It is important.
Review by G. Hoschar for Second Life: The Official Guide Rating:
This book was a big dissapointment for me. I was looking for more detail about using the client (especially the poorly documented menu options) and the scripting language, but found only a rehash of the most basic concepts. The CD is just a collection of publicly available resources I’d already found on my own.
The book did have a few useful links and locations, and a fairly detailed history of Second Life that I was previously unaware of. The book was also well constructed and had full color throughout.
If you want technical information and tutorials, skip this book. If you want pretty pictures, player interviews, and a list of places to explore; you’ll enjoy it.
Review by W Boudville for Second Life: The Official Guide Rating:
Linden Lab’s Second Life has attracted a vast audience in the last year. This book is a copiously illustrated explanation of much that you can do as a new member. Most of it is non-technical. You don’t need extensive computer background. One of the attractions of Second Life.
But the main message is that Second Life is quite unlike most massive multiplayer games. It’s not the place for twitch combat. Instead, Second Life lets you and many others explore a fantastical social environment. Where you can heavily customise your persona.
Starting with choosing a gender. The book shows that a nontrivial percentage of gamers choose the opposite sex for their characters. It also discusses the etiquette of whether you tell others that you are doing this. Since in general, unless you do so, there is no way they can ascertain. These gender benders are one way that Second Life has been used by people to experiment with alternate gender roles, in a manner highly unlikely in real life, if they cannot realistically cross-dress.
There is much more available, as the book relates. You can construct buildings, to make an environment conducive to your persona. More generally, you can make other objects. Also, you can perform activities from which to derive real dollars. Hard work, as the book advises. But unlike some other gaming environments, Second Life explicitly lets you garner some real income if you so desire. This monetary interaction with the real world is a compelling and addictive feature to some players.
Review by Timeless Prototype for Scripting Your World: The Official Guide to Second Life Scripting
Rating:
Aesthetically, I personally found this book is very well laid out, colourful and easy on the eyes. It contains many screenshots and even explanatory diagrams. The structure allows the advanced LSL scripter to scan read to use the book as a decent reference and is complete with keyword indexes in the appendices. All levels of LSL scripters will enjoy the side notes on many pages that explain the aspects being discussed in more detail and gives build notes and useful tips.
The content of the book itself starts with a decent introduction to the LSL scripting language. It gives seasoned programmers the information they need to get started and yet at the same time provides detailed explanations of the syntax for beginners to begin to understand.
The book goes on to cover many various examples with detailed explanations, achieving what I feel is a nice balance with the amount of example code to theory. To take one chapter as an example, it explains the settings of vehicle parameters, handling input controls from the user and setting the position and rotation of the viewer’s camera plus example code to get started with. It is enough to get going on scripting a vehicle in LSL. Advancements in this area would come from experimentation by the LSL scripter herself and by reading the book’s tabulated explanations of all the vehicle parameters and functions. The side notes in this chapter include a useful time-saving warning when combining two of the mechanisms for moving objects and also a note on other scripts to look out for in world and even a link to a wiki that hosts complete sailboat scripts.
What I particularly enjoyed about the book was discovering how others have used LSL scripting. I’d fully expect this book to inspire the LSL scripter into creating something that they may not have tried without having had the book to explain the workflow to them.
Overall, a very respectable and professional book. I’m very pleased with the copy I have.
Review by MeAm Okelly for Scripting Your World: The Official Guide to Second Life Scripting
Rating:
This book helped me a lot in my struggle with Lindens Script Language. The first Chapter is a good review of the language. The next chapters demonstrate how and where to use scripts. Explanations of the examples include object-building instructions. I have used many of the example scripts, which are available in Second Life. For a “hacker” like me who lacks the patience to really study the language rules – this is a perfect resource!
Review by J. graber for Scripting Your World: The Official Guide to Second Life Scripting
Rating:
This book is an excellent guide to scripting. I was able to figure out how to script shapes very effectively. It is a well designed and laid out book. Another feature is the enthusiasm of the authors. They are responsive to emails and post other material on their web site.
BUY this BOOK!
Review by William F. Zachmann for Scripting Your World: The Official Guide to Second Life Scripting
Rating:
This is, by far, the best book yet on writing LSL scripts for Second Life! It is easily the cleanest, most straightforward and most comprehensible presentation of the Linden Scripting Language you will find anywhere. Chapter 1 is a fantastic summary reference as well. If you are interested in scripting in Second Life, you must get this book! If you are not, you should be! A wonderful world awaits you!
All the best,
William F Zachmann, President and CEO, Canopus Research Inc.; Senior Analyst, Enterprise Social Networking, Wainhouse Research; a.k.a. Arifi Saeed, Research Director, SL, Canopus Research Inc.
Review by Gift Card Recipient for Scripting Your World: The Official Guide to Second Life Scripting
Rating:
Glad to get the scripting SL book…This has helped with basic understanding of the scripts and how they work…Was hoping for a little more on timed, multiple animation info “but”…we can’t have it all
Review by CenVillager for Second Life: The Official Guide
Rating:
This book was a major disappointment.
There is very little How TO info in the book if you are not planning to create objects and try to make money in the sim. If you are just a visitor who wants a pleasant time sightseeing and chatting with others, then this book will disappoint.
A large part of the book is a tribute to selected SL residents who have made money in the sim. Nice for them, but who else cares?
Another chapter describes interesting specific locations in SL. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the sites are obsolete and gone.
Even if you are interested in learning scripting language to try to sell products in SL, there have got to be better instructional manuals out there than this.
When I had real HowTo questions, the answer was rarely found in the book.
I truly felt I had wasted my money in purchasing this book. You can learn as much useful info at the initial Help Islands and inworld tutorials once you enter SL.
Review by Christopher J. Carella for Second Life: The Official Guide
Rating:
My copy of Second Life: The Official Guide arrived in the mail yesterday and I’m pleased. The easiest way to summarize the book, is that it acts as the manual that would come with SL if it were shrink-wrapped software.
Mark Wallace’s, Chapter 3: The Grand Tour is fantastic. Before the book arrived I spent hours with a friend yesterday talking about Second Life. He had an account, had logged in, more or less understood what it was but didn’t know where to find cool things. This chapter covers that turf. New and seasoned residents both will find a lot of value in this chapter. It covers everything from The Shelter and Anwr Oil Rig to Something Awful and Gor. I’ll be spending a few hours going back through these places which I’ve toured in the past. This chapter alone makes this a worthy gift for someone you want to become a Second Lifer.
Cory Ondrejka’s LSL chapter is also great. This is the well written, professional introduction to LSL that was sorely needed. Non-programmers will find the examples a great place to start and programmers will be welcomed with the standard sections like “What are types?” that they are used to from other languages.
There is certainly a fair bit of nostalgia for us oldbies. Hamlet has a chapter profiling a number of residents and provides a history lesson in another. The history lesson is a must read for new residents and a stroll down memory lane for the rest of us.
Finally, Wallace closes the book out with a step towards 3PointD.
If you know someone new to Second Life, want to encourage someone to log in in 2007, or otherwise love all things Second Life, you should pick up this book!
Review by David M. Scott for Second Life: The Official Guide
Rating:
Wow. Second Life: The Official Guide is just great. But I need to explain where I am coming from.
I’m happy to be a reasonably early technology adopter and I usually practice the “jump in and try it” mode. For example, I figured out my blog in 2004 without any guidance. But as I was thinking about Second Life as a brand new resident a few months ago, I was sort of feeling like this isn’t a new technology metaphor, it’s a travel metaphor. Second Life is a new place that needs to be learned more than it is a new technology that needs to be learned.
I’ve traveled the world a great deal. For example, I lived in Japan for six years and Hong Kong for two as Asia Marketing Director for a big American company. My entire career has been as an internationalist. I’ve visited some 40 or 50 countries on business or pleasure and logged several million air miles. Before departing for somewhere like Bombay or Bangkok or Brussels, I always purchase a travel guide and read it on the plane. I just like knowing the basics like what’s a funky old restaurant to try, how to hail a cab, and how much to tip (or not).
What Second Life: The Official Guide does is act as your travel guide to a new place. The authors got that right. Thanks! Just like a great Frommer’s travel guide, the book is chock full of places to go, people to see, etiquette, currency exchange, what to wear, and more. In fact, the publisher, Wiley, could do a version of this book as an actual Frommer’s guide, to complement the Sybex computer book imprint that Second Life: The Official Guide is published with. Wouldn’t that be cool!?
Yes, there is also a boatload of stuff for Second Life experts including details on the Second Life scripting language. This stuff is beyond me but if it is as well written as the parts that I devoured, than even long time residents will get a great deal of practical information from the book. Several of the authors work at Linden Labs, the company behind Second Life so it must be accurate.
Thanks for doing this book, guys. It is important.
Review by G. Hoschar for Second Life: The Official Guide
Rating:
This book was a big dissapointment for me. I was looking for more detail about using the client (especially the poorly documented menu options) and the scripting language, but found only a rehash of the most basic concepts. The CD is just a collection of publicly available resources I’d already found on my own.
The book did have a few useful links and locations, and a fairly detailed history of Second Life that I was previously unaware of. The book was also well constructed and had full color throughout.
If you want technical information and tutorials, skip this book. If you want pretty pictures, player interviews, and a list of places to explore; you’ll enjoy it.
Review by W Boudville for Second Life: The Official Guide
Rating:
Linden Lab’s Second Life has attracted a vast audience in the last year. This book is a copiously illustrated explanation of much that you can do as a new member. Most of it is non-technical. You don’t need extensive computer background. One of the attractions of Second Life.
But the main message is that Second Life is quite unlike most massive multiplayer games. It’s not the place for twitch combat. Instead, Second Life lets you and many others explore a fantastical social environment. Where you can heavily customise your persona.
Starting with choosing a gender. The book shows that a nontrivial percentage of gamers choose the opposite sex for their characters. It also discusses the etiquette of whether you tell others that you are doing this. Since in general, unless you do so, there is no way they can ascertain. These gender benders are one way that Second Life has been used by people to experiment with alternate gender roles, in a manner highly unlikely in real life, if they cannot realistically cross-dress.
There is much more available, as the book relates. You can construct buildings, to make an environment conducive to your persona. More generally, you can make other objects. Also, you can perform activities from which to derive real dollars. Hard work, as the book advises. But unlike some other gaming environments, Second Life explicitly lets you garner some real income if you so desire. This monetary interaction with the real world is a compelling and addictive feature to some players.