Monday, April 11, 2011

Of Menus and Spaces

Menus are hierarchical. Non-cyclic, they may contain aliases.

Menus are installed in a space. A menu is just a text file or collection of files, capable of storing hierarchy structure, and all data and algorithms to invoke an action based on a command chosen in a context.

Multiple menus can live in one space. Menus can call each other in the same space with a different security context than calling menus in other spaces.

The context is in the space. The context may be a sandbox with a namespace of variables and commands. But that context is in the space.

The space is just data; can also be represented as a directory of files.

Ultimately a space lives in a JVM, there is an uber-sandbox of Java class files to provide an API to the space, to the commands in the space.

A space is data. These data can be closed and exported to another machine.

So very quickly we have the problem of synchronizing spaces.

Some spaces will be very data-centric, will be about storing data, or metadata. Others will be more atuned to a user's desires. Data-centric spaces will have p2p, federated backup and sync, or publish-subscribe strategies for synchronization. The personalization spaces will have to follow the user more closely, e.g. actually stored on user's person, e.g. cell phone sdcard. Or perhaps biometric or passphrase based user identification for opening a write session to a hosted space. Or maybe, spaces allow mulitple users to log in and change a space. So you log into a space, and are perhaps simultaneously logged in to other spaces you need. Your master local session keeps track of these spaces, and marshalls data between spaces based on permissions.

All messages to menus, API objects, etc., use an XML payload input and output objects. The function name, plus the type (schema) of objects they require and return defines the API.

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