[cap-talk] A paper on web-keys

[Toby Murray]

On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 01:53 +0000, Karp, Alan H wrote:
> Toby Murray wrote:
> >
> > However, perhaps it isn't as hard as one might imagine at
> > first. Perhaps
> > all that is needed is a means to allow the user to create
> > less powerful
> > webkeys to useful facets of their account. Given the nature of the
> web
> > app in question, the choice of facets may well be obvious and may
> well
> > still allow the application to be mashed-up to other
> > developers' hearts'
> > content.
> >
> We have proposed such a UI for an HP product.  It's based on the
> user's need to designate the object and method on that object.

That's very cool -- not least because it takes advantage of the "the
object's interface *is* the UI" idea that the Waterken approach makes
possible. (Although I'm still yet to dig into the new JSON/JavaScript
Waterken implementation but this certainly applies to the old XML/XSLT
one.) I think that this is one of the key advantages that Waterken has
over all other known capability implementations -- e.g. E, KeyKOS
derivatives, etc.

Reviewers who commented that the WebKeys paper should have cited Amoeba
etc. and that the WebKeys work is merely a rehashing of these ideas are
missing this fundamental innovation that I reckon the Waterken approach
has made.

 
>   A real UI would provide a means to manage delegations.  The key
> point is that the user does no more work than needed to designate what
> is to be done.

Is there any evidence, one way or another, to indicate whether even this
amount of work is too much for users to handle?