[cap-talk] Capability documentation and books (was: Re: Demonstrations and explanations)

[Jed Donnelley]

On 4/9/2008 4:07 PM, lists at notatla.org.uk wrote:
> Pierre THIERRY wrote:
> 
>> But the available documentation is nowhere near usable
>> to get a grip on what capabilities are and how to use
>> them practically.

Hmmm.  About how to use them, I'd say a book to that
end is worthwhile.  However, about what they are,
that is so darn simple that I think we should be able
to get that right in some visible place like the
Wikipedia page(s?):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_security
(or: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-capability_model
a source of confusion).

I hope there aren't too many shudders, but I'm going
to work on that a bit through:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Capability-based_security#Object-capabilitymodel_Merger_Discussion

to try to get that off the dime.  I think it important
to include a Granovetter diagram in the "definition".

http://www.erights.org/elib/capability/ode/images/granovetter.png

>> One year ago, I wanted to use a capability design in one
>> of my software developments, because I could see that
>> it could help make it more flexible, but I realized I
>> absolutely didn't know where to begin to do that.
>>
>> A book about capability discipline and capability design
>> would be great.
> 
> That's certainly true.  I've been lurking at the fringes of
> capability thinking for years (in a part-time not very
> dedicated way) thinking how unclear the beginners' material is.
> I've just ordered the Levy book.

I hope everybody knows that the Levy book is available
in it's entirety on-line:

http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/levy/capabook/

(though the cs.washington.edu site seems to be unavailable
to me at the moment).

I haven't looked there recently to see if he
tries to define what a "capability" is, but I
don't have very positive memories.  I hope we don't
have to wait for a book to create an easy to find
place to get a description of what the capability
paradigm is.

--Jed  http://www.webstart.com/jed/