[Isolate-interest] deafening silence about refactored APIs

[Curt Cox]

OK, I'll bite.

1) The explicit classpath support appears to be gone.
Is an Isolate now forced to have the same classpath as its
creator?  If not, how do you change it?  I don't mean to
imply that classpath is the proper mechanism or level of
abstraction to determine what classes are available.
To me, the classpath is just a convenient mechanism to
define the behavior of a ClassLoader.  So, I would favor
creating an Isolate using a given ClassLoader, along with
convenience methods to easily construct a ClassLoader from
a classpath.

2) How do you specify a SecurityManager for an Isolate?

One common need would be to create an isolate with
the same ClassLoader and SecurityManager as its creator.
I take it by the absence of mechanisms to change
ClassLoader and SecurityManger that this case is the
one supported.  It should never be possible for an
Isolate to create another with more permissions that
it has, but they will frequently want to create Isolates
with
- fewer permissions
- access to more classes
- access to fewer classes
- access to completely different classes

3) Looking through the API, I guess IsolateParameters is
intended to be the mechanism to accomplish all of this.
Why does IsolateParameters use Strings for getContext
and setContext, rather than enums?  Using enums instead
of Strings would add type-safety and API clarity.

4) What about logging?  Does each Isolate log separately,
or do all isolates in an aggregate share logs?

5) What about unit and functional tests?  Migrating the
documentation from the last public review with the appropriate
changes would really help with understanding the API, but
so would lots of tests.  Tests have the added advantage of
facilitating the implementation of the API via third parties.
Is this the proper forum to submit tests to?

6) What are the J2SE dependencies of Isolates?
It looks to me like the API could be implemented in pure
Java for any JRE after 1.4.x.  Am I missing something?

Finally, some non-API questions that I'm sure most of
the subscribers to this list are constantly wondering about.
- What is the current schedule for the JSR?
- What form will the reference implementation likely take?
- When will implementations be available?

Thanks,
Curt
-----Original Message-----
From: isolate-interest-admin@cs.oswego.edu
[mailto:isolate-interest-admin@cs.oswego.edu]On Behalf Of Pete Soper
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 4:00 PM
To: Isolate-interest@altair.cs.oswego.edu
Subject: [Isolate-interest] deafening silence about refactored APIs


I realize the strawman7 "javadoc" requires a lot of familiarity with the
last public review doc and some info from the EG to fully appreciate, but I
didn't expect a full month without any comments. Maybe all the spam caused
folks to route their mail from this list to /dev/null? (Doug is usually
beating
me to the punch to toss the SPAM but I'm confident there won't be more than
a weekend's worth of lag before any message to the list gets distributed
assuming our vacation/travel doesn't overlap).

If some of you are PO'd by my lack of responses to your email, please give
me
another chance. I've tried to respond in every case but I get loads of SPAM
and have a bad memory for needed replies.

Regards,
Pete

Pete Soper <psoper@pjs.East.Sun.COM> said:
> Here is the javadoc for a previously mentioned proposal for refactoring
the
> JSR-121 APIs in reaction to not getting onto the Tiger train.
>
> This won't make any sense at all without reference to the last formal
> public review draft and some bits require explanation that I and perhaps
> the rest of the EG simply will not be able to supply quickly: apologies in
> advance, it isn't about lack of desire, for sure.
>
> My further apologies for not being able to do anything but a "cp -r" from
the
> EG's files as publication. But so many of you have sent patient pleas to
"get
> on with it!" that I thought this might help for the moment:
>
>   http://bitser.net/isolate-interest/strawman7/
>
> Regards,
> Pete
> _______________________________________________
> Isolate-interest mailing list
> Isolate-interest@altair.cs.oswego.edu
> http://altair.cs.oswego.edu/mailman/listinfo/isolate-interest
>
--
Pete
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