Re: [caplisp-devel] Greetings caplisp denizens!

[Mark M. <ma...@cs...>]

David Mercer wrote:
> I just re-read most of that post (thanks for the link!) and I recall
> it pretty clearly.  The "why not just implement a fast E?" attitude of
> Jonathan's in the message you were replying to is part of why this
> effort exists.  Some on e-lang seem to be prejudiced against anything
> non-E in capsec languages, and can't see IT'S theoretical limitations,
> which smacks me as a bit ironic, considering how that attitude
> somewhat mirrors the prejudice experienced by the cap community in the
> wider computing world (god, an outcast among outcasts, that must be
> the story of my life! :-)

Please see my response 
<http://www.eros-os.org/pipermail/cap-talk/2004-December/002432.html> and my 
clarification of that response 
<http://www.eros-os.org/pipermail/cap-talk/2004-December/002433.html>.

AFAIK, it is rare that anything that sounds like a prejudice against other 
capsec languages is voiced on e-lang; and whenever it is, it is always quickly 
answered. My sense of the general consensus of e-lang as a community (to the 
extent that it makes sense to speak of such a thing) is that there is no such 
prejudice.

Note that Jonathan, the author of the response you're reacting to, is 
currently working on bitc -- a Scheme-like language with elements of ML, C, E, 
and eventually (in the meta-level proof sublanguage) Twelf.


>>As far as what to post where... I really appreciate the feedback from
>>the regulars on e-lang, so anything I have to say which isn't strictly
>>an implementation detail is likely to be posted there.  I did ask
>>recently, and MarkM said that we were quite welcome to discuss a
>>cap-secure CL on the e-lang list.
> 
> Certainly! 

Yes, agreed, certainly!

Also, I'd like to clarify the notion of "E proper". AFAI can tell, the active 
Oz-E, defunct Squeak-E, and soon-to-be-announced Joe-E efforts do not resemble 
the E language itself anymore than does the caplisp effort you have in mind. 
If you adopt httpsy and E's concurrency control, then you'll resemble E even 
more than some of these. The naming convention we've been using is "E-on-X" to 
mean a port of the E language itself onto platform X, whereas "X-E" is an 
adaptation of X to incorporate ideas from E while still retaining the 
look-and-feel of X. Kevin renamed his efforts from CL-E to E-on-CL in order to 
follow this convention, and avoid confusion with a possible future CL-E or 
Lisp-E effort.

Brian of Twisted Python fame (see <http://www.lothar.com/blog/twisted/>) 
suggests a further clarification. He'd like to eventually create a Python 
variant supporting object-granularity capability security. In the meantime, 
inspired by Ben Laurie's "CaPerl", he's contemplating a compromise giving only 
"zone" granularity capability security (much like the J-Kernel did for Java). 
He's using the name CaPython for the zone granularity system and reserving the 
names Mont-E or Pyth-E for a possible future object-granularity system.

So, as you can guess by now, I would like to gently suggest that the caplisp 
effort be renamed to something along the lines of CL-E or Lisp-E. Of course, 
the E-language effort itself would benefit from such a renaming, so you should 
regard my reasoning here with caution. Why do I think the caplisp effort would 
benefit from this renaming?

All our efforts taken together are still well below critical mass is getting 
attention from the wider world. But "Buzz" feeds on the perception that 
something new and big may be brewing -- that there's a growing movement of 
something underfoot. E has struggled to try to get people's attention despite 
its alignment with an old and long-ago discredited paradigm, capabilities. 
Simply renaming this "object capabilities", which we did largely for other 
reasons, has done wonders getting us past this initial barrier.

Those who've gotten the standard CS education who hear about a "caplisp" may 
quickly dismiss it as well for the same reason. However, with several similar 
efforts using names that make it clear they're somehow related, then someone 
who hears only the names of several of these has a sense that "something's 
happening, perhaps I should find out what". Breaking through this first 
barrier is a huge deal that shouldn't be underestimated.

In light of these various uses of the "-E" suffix, all or which I've 
encouraged, I propose that we regard the letter "E" as being about a bundle of 
ideas. The "E language" per se serves only as a flagship for this bundle of ideas.

Because of my conflict of interest, I will shut up on this topic now and leave 
it to the rest of caplisp community to decide what name they wish to use. 
Whatever you choose, I will certainly remain supportive of your efforts!

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

     Cheers,
     --MarkM