Re: How about a Safe Virtual Machine?

Steven D. Majewski (sdm7g@virginia.edu)
Tue, 4 Oct 1994 03:00:30 -0400 (EDT)


Whether we are talking about a virtual machine, or a language,
the problem seems to be that some larger functionality - either
a built-in function, or a system-call, has to be standardized.

Given a list of those higher-level capabilities, the question
of language syntax is pretty trivial. A minimal syntax would
make sense - it could be scheme, tcl, or even an <SGML>-ish
representation. ( After reading the paper on TC - a tcl compiler,
I considered trying to compile tcl source into python byte code -
it looks like it would map pretty well. However, at the time,
I was advised that doing that wouldn't get me very far without
all of the other functionality of Tk and other external libraries.
Now that Tk has been ported to Python, I may reconsider. )

Nathaniel has incorporated a number of email-centric functions
into safe-tcl. I don't think we've identified a similar set
for Web applications and agents.

-- Steve Majewski (804-982-0831) <sdm7g@Virginia.EDU> --
-- UVA Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics --
-- Box 449 Health Science Center Charlottesville,VA 22908 --
[ "Cheese is more macho?" ]