[Python-Dev] In defense of Capabilities [was: doc for new restricted execution design for Python]

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 10:56 AM 7/11/2006 -0700, Brett Cannon wrote:
>On 7/10/06, Talin <<mailto:talin at acm.org>talin at acm.org> wrote:
>>(Although, I've often wished for Python to have a variant of __call__
>>that could be used to override individual methods, i.e.:
>>
>>      __call_method__( self, methodname, *args )

As with so many other things in this discussion, this was already invented 
by the Zope folks just shy of a decade ago.  ;-)  __call_method__ is 
actually a feature of ExtensionClasses, although you can of course 
implement it yourself now atop new-style classes.

For other things that Zope has already done in the area of restricted 
execution R&D, see:

http://svn.zope.org/Zope3/trunk/src/zope/security/untrustedinterpreter.txt?view=auto

The surrounding directory has other documents regarding their approach.

I haven't been following this discussion closely, but a lot of the things 
mentioned in this thread seem to have a lot in common with stuff the Zope 
folks have had in production for "untrusted" Python execution for some time 
now, working with current versions of Python.  It would be a shame to 
reinvent all the same wheels, especially since their code is nicely 
documented complete with extensive doctests and explanations of the approach.