> >MarkM has proposed that there be some canonical way to ask a key to
> >describe its protocol for purposes of dynamic binding. I'm inclined
> >to agree with this, though it's not clear if it should be a
> >semi-standard order code or by way of a type registry.
>
> KeyKOS's "new command system" used the KT value (alleged type). But
> KeyKOS never claimed to provide type safety (at that level). The
> only claim for type safety was buried in the "offical" 3rd party
> verification concept.
As I undestand it, MarkM is after something a bit different. He would like a canonical mechanism by which a language run-time system can bind to a newly received capability, building a type-checkable interface to the object. He assumes that the object is cooperating with this.
What's desired is a way for the caller (in this case the language runtime) to ask the object:
what are all your order codes, by what (human) names should they be known, and what are the associated arguments and return values.
I gather that the goal is to avoid any need to build all potential objects into the run-time system in advance. An unusual quality of his request is that he wants the objects to support it themselves (including kernel objects).
The end result is similar in flavor to Microsoft's COM model, and I wonder if we shouldn't look at that a bit.
shap