task_perms(), callers(), etc.

• Date: Mon, 25 Sep 1995 12:55:00 PDT
• From:
  Mike Dixon <mdixon@parc.xerox.com>
• Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

ok, i'll bite; instead of going around in circles trying to come up with
ways for a verb to determine whether or not it's being called "at the top
level", why not just decide that that was the wrong question to be asking in
the first place?

assuming that the only real use for this test is in something of the form
   effective_caller_perms = <am_i_top_level> ? player | caller_perms()
i'd argue that the right answer is to make caller_perms()==player when a
verb is called from the top level, rather than some bogus "top level" value.

i claim that (a) this is conceptually coherent, (b) even though it isn't
backwards compatible, almost all existing code should continue to work
anyway (it'll think it isn't being called from the top level, but it will
use the right perms), and (c) it requires no gyrations for in-db parsing.

am i missing something obvious here?
                                                        .mike.

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