[cap-talk] network level designation and authorization (RANT)

[John Carlson]

On Jun 7, 2006, at 5:31 PM, Karp, Alan H wrote:

> Far better and far simpler
> is using unguessable addresses as with web-calculus.

Okay, let's use web-calculus.  How do I write a client that can
use web-calculus to manage a capability passing system.
Say I want to exchange capabilities and build trust between
people?  And based upon this, how would I write a multiuser
whiteboard?  So far, what I've seen of the client side of web-calculus,
it involves using the  POST and GET classes, and the parameters names  
that
you are supposed to pass are extremely hard to get ahold of
(requiring knowledge of XSLT).  How do we make it easier for
people to write the client side of web-calculus.  Perhaps I am
missing something from the documentation?

Maybe someone can tell me how to force the waterken server
to process XSLT on the server side, so I can get HTML to work with?

I am open to people pointing me to places on one of the web-calculus
web sites.

I am not open to writing a bunch of XML and XSLT processing steps.
Those should be provided.  I am anti-XML because I feel that Scheme
or Lisp offer a better solution.  Basically, I want to program in  
Java on
the client side.  How do I do this?

Basically, I have heard a lot of hot air about web-calculus, and
only two people digging into the details.  What walls are people hitting
when they approach web-calculus?  Are people just reading web-sites,
and not digging into the code?  I think I've tried to explain my
issues with web-calculus, but no one seems to be helping me.

I HAVEN'T been reading the web-sites, I've been digging into the
code.  I wouldn't declare something useable just because you've
read a few web sites, and think lambda-calculus is wonderful.  Just
because you see a web site, you fall in love with it?  Get real!

I've also tried to develop server side code with web-calculus,
and it requires knowledge of XSLT.  What a load of crap!

People really have bought off on this XML/XSLT crap, when it
would be just as easy to use Java, C++ or some other more
reasonable language.  Are people too scared to write a C++
parser/generator for global variables?  I've done it, it's not that
hard.  And you get  a true graph out of it, not some tree-like
contraption.

For someone in my shoes, I offer the first few steps of XML
independence.  On my site, I have written an XML->Java->XML
converter.  This will allow you to step away from the XML
monstrosity, and reenter the world of java. It's not pretty,
but it certainly is a step.  One reason why I dislike Java is
because it doesn't offer the same succinctness yet verbosity
that XML offers.  I suggest that Sun start working on Java
to incorporate XML features into the base Java language.

http://schizophrenics.net/javahier.tar.gz

Are there any sane computer scientists left out there?

John