[e-lang] Non-string message selectors

[Mark S. Miller]

Darius Bacon wrote:
> In other E-like systems, it might be natural to send messages that
> aren't of the form <selector_string>(<list_of_arguments>).  For
> example, in T a selector was an anonymous operation object, and I
> think Joule has something similar.  If these systems want to talk to E
> via CapTP, can they do so directly, or must they find a way of mapping
> their selectors onto strings?  The recent Trusty Scheme thread on
> cap-talk made me wonder.

They must map. Dean advocates making E more T/Joule-like in this regard, but 
we'd either need to restrict selectors to PassByCopy objects, in which case we 
lose most of the reason to do this, or we'd need to fix the Lost Resolution Bug
<http://www.erights.org/elib/equality/passing-rules.html#lost-resolution>,
which is hard and low priority.

As of the anticipated E Alpha (aka E 0.9), message names will still be limited 
to strings. Until the Lost Resolution bug is fixed, I consider this feature 
request to also be low priority. So don't program expecting this feature, but 
also don't program counting on this feature to never happen.

Historical note: Joule's "Type Extension", aka "Energetic Secrets" 
<ftp://ftp.webcom.com/pub1/agorics/postscript/MANUAL.B17.ps.Z>, were inspired 
by T's first class operations.

-- 
Text by me above is hereby placed in the public domain

     Cheers,
     --MarkM