[cap-talk] testing install of Waterken server before WWW 2008

[Jed Donnelley]

On 4/16/2008 6:35 AM, Tyler Close wrote:
...
> The secret here is to install the squarefree shell as a bookmarklet
> (term used for a bookmark of a javascript: URL). Once you've done
> that, you can click on it to open a shell on whatever web page you are
> currently looking at in your browser. A bookmarklet is installed by
> bookmarking the URL using the normal bookmark user interface. For
> example, you could right click on the "shell" button and select
> "Bookmark this Link...".

Thanks.  The above got me past that hurdle.  I think I may have actually
done so before, but I didn't know it.  When I open the bookmarklet
it opens a new window whose only connection to the original "Web page"
(e.g. http://localhost:8080/ ) seems to be that the URL shows up at
the top of the window (not in a location bar, but where the title of
a Web page normally appears).  The connection to the original page and
consequentially the waterken server that I started was unclear, to me
anyway.

> Once you've got the shell installed, your goal is to open it on a
> version of the test page served from your own machine, instead of from
> vsci.hpl.hp.com. You can create a version of the test page on your own
> machine using the directions at:
> 
> http://waterken.sourceforge.net/deploy/#add_vat

OK, I ran the command:

$ java -jar spawn.jar example org.waterken.bang.Main test

and a new vat is apparently created (I see a new zero length file
named .test.was in the ~waterken/vat directory).  I also received
what is apparently a web-key as indicated as output:

http://localhost:8080/-/test/#fhy...

Once I set up that vat and visited the above URL I was able to
run the Javascript interpreter and then test the examples from:

http://waterken.sourceforge.net/bang/

That seemed to work fine.  If that's where you are pointing,
then it seems to me just a little clarification will do the
job.  As I noted, I did my testing on a Windows OS and used
cygwin tools for my build.  Naturally other environments will
be different.


Here's some feedback on the demo/tests:

One thing I don't understand is the connection between the
Javascript shell and the underlying waterken server.  Superficially
the waterken server looks just like a Web server.  How is it
these Javascript "commands" interact with the back end waterken
server?  I'd be interested to see some sort of a diagram or
discussion about how those two pieces communicate, particularly
with regard to authority.

In light of the Caja development I'd also be interested to hear
about how the interaction between the Javascript interpreter
and the waterken server compares to what would/will happen with
Caja code interacting with a waterken server.

The examples seem a bit dry to me.  Testing message sending and
replies for a single incrementing method strikes me as a
topic only a developer could love.  I hope that's where you're
focusing your presentation.

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