[Python-Dev] Capabilities (we already got one)

[Ben Laurie]

Ken Manheimer wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Apr 2003, Ka-Ping Yee wrote:
> One big one seems to be: "What needs to be done to enable effective
> ("safe"?) use of python object (references) as capabilities?"  I've
> seen answers to this roll by several times - i think we need to settle
> them, and collect the conclusions in a PEP.  And we need to identify
> what other questions there are.

I am in the process of writing a PEP, and it is being informed by this 
discussion. Unfortunately, I have several day jobs and its going 
somewhat slowly. I've also been bogged down somewhat in a theoretical 
discussion with a bunch of capability experts over globals and how they 
should work. However, we do appear to have reached closure on that 
issue: globals have to be at least transitively immutable - 
unfortunately, I have demonstrated that this requirement is not 
sufficient to make them safe, but it is (we believe) necessary. So, now 
I've sorted that one out I can complete my first pass on the PEP, which 
I expect to do in the next few days.

At that point, I'm slightly unsure how best to proceed. The most obvious 
way is, of course, to follow the standard PEP procedure, but are there 
people who would like to comment before I submit the first draft?

It is still going to be full of unanswered questions, but I do think we 
are near to the stage where we can start nailing down the answers.

Cheers,

Ben.

-- 
http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html       http://www.thebunker.net/

"There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he
doesn't mind who gets the credit." - Robert Woodruff