I have had many new scripters, never having scripted or coded anything else in their life, try to compare themselves to me. Not that they are saying that they are as good, no, quite the opposite, that they feel rather inadequate when they do the comparison. (I am an Elf, I am allowed to be elitist.) When I explain I have been doing this sort of thing for about 35 years they are shocked. For goodness sakes, that means I didn't start until my early 40's!
So let me tell you a little about my history. I recall, 40 years ago, when it was said that humans had stepped foot on the moon. I know, who would believe that! But I do recall picking up a telescope and looking at the moon at that time just to see. Nope. I didn't see anyone there. It did, however, make me more interested in humans and their world. We never had an "industrial revolution." I blame (credit?) magic for that. We are, however, excellent bio-engineers. Well, some elves are. I am not. I was in my late 30's when the moon incident happened, and as such was just beginning my wandering stage of life. I decided to learn more about this so called technical science that you humans were doing. This was my introduction to your computing engines. I must admit, I had never considered leveraging the simple logical expressions of AND, OR, NOT and so on to such a level, and then realizing that when you actually took these out of the mind and made them physical that time was also added (it takes time to do something) and this would bring about latches and the ability to "remember" state. This was exciting. A new puzzle!
I brought these ideas back to some of our more creative gardeners, and behold, "Elven Computers" were born. For a very long time it was a game. Our gardeners were able to do everything with bio-engineering, focusing with specialized fruits and vegetables, that you humans were doing with transistors and electricity. I started to write "programs" for these new creations. I contend the best fruits we have used have come from the apple tree, though certain vegetables have proven their own worth as well.
Okay, some of you are saying "Ha! That is not likely! You were barely 40, you had not even done your duty of making and raising a family, much less spend a hundred and some odd years studying under a master so you yourself could be a master! No one your age does such things!" And you might even have a point! But, consider, this was an entirely knew concept to our people. There were no masters in this area. The gardeners were masters, of course, but in terms of "programming" it was unknown. Certainly many of those that entered this field since that time are much older than me, and have contributed in great ways that are beyond me, but still, I was an early pioneer at my tender age.
Over the years we advanced, and we went from simple calculating machines to programmable devices, programming languages, and operating systems. We learned many concepts from what was being done in the human world as well. Eventually I became focused on Operating System design, and it still holds a special place in my heart. I look back fondly on those days. But eventually we decided that it was silly to re-invent all that humans were doing and I began, with others, to work on providing special skin layers for our fruits that would allow us to bring in human software. Eventually this evolved to emulating the actual hardware of human devices. This was very exciting work and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I became to appreciate the beauty of design of some of the processors you all designed, and to loathe others.
During this time we also followed your work in networking. This was another great period for me. Learning to actually communicate from our world to yours! I do not understand the lowest level conversions between our organic system and your electronic, nor how this works between the portal between the two worlds. Some of your protocols take on new jokes in our world, considering we use genetically engineered vines the same way you use networking cables. We adopted protocols such as IP and TCP and UDP. We had already learned that doing it our own way was simply too much work.
Then the bad started to happen. We realized that there were security risks in such things. Initially it did not matter, it was all academic curiosity. But when these concepts provided useful functionality of value, security became an issue. Most recently I have been focusing on such things.
Scripting in SL is something I find quaint and amusing. It provides new challenges, mostly from the quaintness of the language and the interesting interactions with "real objects".
So that is why I, a young elf, do the scripting that I do. I simply have been doing it for a very long time and have had the joyous opportunity to experience so many different aspects of what you call software engineering. I don't really consider myself an engineer. I prefer to think of myself as an artist who expresses herself through the constraints of software.
And I have a confession to make. Very recently we actually started to use the actual electrical devices made in your world. I do not trust electricity, but I am using it, though only to power these devices. I hate to say it, but I am amazed by what you humans have done. I am just glad that my experience allows me to program even these human devices. Most often, what I design can be used on either human or elven devices. But please don't tell anyone. I try to keep the fact that I use electricity a secret...
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