Re: Programmatic and security models for IoT

On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 6:20 PM, Bill Frantz <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 1/21/15 at 3:37 AM, [email protected] (Tim Coote) wrote:
>> So I have two questions:
>> - Does E sound like it’s a reasonable starting point for a programming
>> model?
>
> I think E is THE right starting point for a programming model. [...]

Yes; meanwhile...


>> - What’s a reasonable starting implementation (I’m assuming that E itself
>> is not currently sufficiently robust, even if it’s useful for didactic
>> purposes - but I’m happy to be told otherwise)?
>
>
> The E on Java environment seems reasonably robust for experimenting and
> development. ...

SES (Secure EcmaScript) seems more promising, to me.

http://code.google.com/p/es-lab/

Using ocap discipline in javascript is really quite nice, as I
recently (re?)discovered. I work with this clinical data warehouse
query system (https://www.i2b2.org/) that has html/css/js/ajax
plug-ins. I made a couple plug-ins by copying an existing plug-in and
tweaking it. I was having trouble managing simple typos, so I tried
typescript. Then I used typescript class stuff, with implementation
inheritance, to factor out some common code between two plug-ins. I
couldn't reconcile typescript modules with the i2b2 plug-in loader; I
had to edit the compiled output each time. I decided that wasn't worth
the bother and just started maintaining the javascript. I set it aside
for a few months and then came back to it and realized I had created a
monster.

Then I got a chance to start fresh on another plugin
(https://bitbucket.org/DanC/cohorttops ). My colleague had i2b2
running on his laptop, so I used ssh and a Makefile to push my code
over there for testing as I developed it. When he shut down for the
day, I finally came to my senses and realized that if I used ocap
discipline, I could unit test my code without the whole i2b2 app
server and database environment. So I factored out all the sources of
authority and set up doctest.js. Ah... so much nicer!

(Aside: I'm completely addicted to doctest; I'm starting to look at
moving on from python, and I started to enjoy scala a bit, but every
time I wrote a test description, I kept grumbling "why do I have to
write this twice: once in my test descriptions and once in my
documentation?" doctest and E's updoc are pretty much the same idea.
http://doctestjs.org/ applies the same technique to JavaScript.
Yummy.)

Not only that, but the same style of code gets along great with the
flow static analyzer from some facebook engineers.
http://flowtype.org/

Back when the node.js platform was building, I kept hoping ocap
supporters would influence it, but I guess none of us found the time.
There's not much chance to influence the basic fs API and such now,
but it's still feasible to get a lot of benefit from ocap discipline
in javascript, both on the server side and the browser side.

And now IoT is an emerging thing, and they're going after developers
via javascript...

First Look: Javascript Microcontrollers for Web Developers
February 4th, 2013 8:56 am
http://makezine.com/magazine/first-look-javascript-micro-controllers-for-web-developers/

"DeviceJS is a distributed system. " --
http://devicejs.org/blog/post/how-it-works

IoT is just screaming out for robust composition with capabilities and
promises. I think deploying SES in that context is pretty promising.


-- 
Dan Connolly
http://www.madmode.com/
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