March 18, 2003
11:40 a.m.
Capabilities can loosely be thought of like bound methods. Security with capabilities is done based on possession; if you hold a reference to an object you can use that object.
No -- capabilities (as envisioned for Python) are references. Whether a reference to an object, to a bound method, or to a function doesn't matter. Note that it isn't that capabilities are "like" references, it is that capabilities *are* references. Every reference is a capability. Every capability is a reference.
Security with capabilities is done based on possession; if you hold a reference to an object you can use that object.
Yes. Regards, Zooko http://zooko.com/ ^-- under re-construction: some new stuff, some broken links