- From: Anselm Baird-Smith <abaird@w3.org>
- Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 19:24:59 +0500
- To: sfarley@aurorasim.com
- Cc: Jigsaw Mailing List <www-jigsaw@w3.org>, craig@aurorasim.com, thoth@aurorasim.com
[I wish I had mutliple life, and rather than comming with some answers, I would be able to come with code] Steven R. Farley writes: > First of all, I'd like to say that the Jigsaw design, IMHO, is quite elegant. The ability to > create custom resoure types and execute an arbitrary implementation of GET, PUT, etc. is very > powerful. Thanks, > I am particularly interested in support for mobile agent execution, i.e. Java classes securely > roaming from server to server, perfoming some arbitrary task on behalf of a user. I've noticed > in the httpSecurityManager code that support for agent execution is planned. I have some > questions regarding this capability: The current httpdSecurityManager is broken, it is a remainder of some old version of Jigsaw which did support PUT'able agents (you would PUT a Agent, which would be executed server side). This first thing (Agent) seems appealing although not as interesting (at this point) as what follows... > - How far along is the design of the agent architecture? Pretty near: one of the goals in designing Resources was to be able to replicate them around the world, so that you would be able to replicate the thing that *compute* content, rather then the content itself. In brief, pickle() a resource to a socket, you'll get an agent. Implement a small inter-server protocol to replicate resources, you'll get a really powerfull system. > - Will it consist of interfaces so that we can implement our own versions of agent mobility and > execution that adhere to a standard API? Come with suggestion, I'll be glad to dicuss them. > - Will you accept suggestions and/or assistance? Yes, this is the purpose of this mailing list > Although the concept of agents roaming the Web is scary, it will happen eventually. Java is > the perfect environment for this and within a couple of years, according to JavaSoft's press > releases, it will be embedded within every major operating system. This is a good opportunity > for a reputable organization, such as the W3C, to provide a secure, standardized agent > framework/architecture for the Internet. If anybody is interested, there are some interesting > papers written for the Joint W3C/OMG Workshop on Distributed Objects and Mobile Code at > http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/OOP/9606_Workshop/submissions/accept. BTW, you should also check IBM's Aglet stuff (I didn't have time to do it myself yet). Anselm.
Received on Friday, 14 June 1996 19:25:19 UTC