Agoric SES, 25 Aug 2021

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From YouTube: SES Meeting: To Name a Realm

Description

Continued conversation on the name of the Realms proposal.

A

All right welcome to this tess meeting. Today's topics are uh the naming of realms and uh uh discussing the property override mistake, and if there are ways forward or around it um leo, would you like to summarize the the current conversation around the name of realm.

B

Sure, um as anyone can exp and things as anyone can expect, we got a very considerate amount of name suggestions for realms, it's okay for everyone to have opinions. What is also interesting, uh I would say here there is no perfect name for what we created.

B

um I think for me, in my own opinion, like the perfect name, is refers to something that doesn't have a very specific name. Like I mentioned glovebox and.

B

So uh after collecting some of that, I intend to bring to tc39 a small collection of names or to get like a easier, maybe an easier solution. That's my hope. um uh The first of all is like just the status quo. Just continue with realms uh understanding like the the uh issues as people raise as like keeping this name would bring. I don't think there would be like breaking anything on the web. It's more more of the confusion it brings to maybe implementers.

B

um Maybe it's just like the communication of like the realm constructor creates uh realms, uh but it does only days and that.

B

And uh then, uh after this name, we have some suggestions. uh There is one name that we are considering this uh bubble.

B

um It's not my my perf personal favorite one, uh but it's like a suggestion that is being supported by many people, including people from the champions group and every name has its pros and cons bubble is still remains as a single name, and it does have the advantage of being just a single name uh itself.

B

It kind of uh gives a sense. This is a new thing. um At the same time, it does have the cons as like, uh in my own opinion, I think bobo. If someone tries to search like what what this is about like if they find it, uh there is something available and natively in the browser, and then I search on the web. uh What something is about if I try to search for mobile javascript, definitely I'm gonna find a lot of things about, like event, bubbles a lot of things that are not realms related.

B

um This is one of my uh thing that I believe it's a better counter argument than the next one. The next one is people say just like bubble. Just works as a cutesy, um it's a cute name uh and also doesn't explain what the api does.

B

So this made me try to think about a name, as we discussed here in the sas meetings and I'll be trying to find some taxonomy that works for for these, and I try to stick with what we have so that one of the suggestions is a satellite realm.

B

It still doesn't fit into like just a single name: it's a double name. It says it's related to realm and satellite. It's not yet a thing uh on the web world, at least on the native apis.

B

um It's one of the advantages is actually like: it's easy for people to browse on the web. What is a satellite uh realm, and it kind of like gives the thing it. It's something that it's related to the main realm to the main board, um and it does have a protocol of communication.

B

You can actually the satellite don't usually touch the main realm. uh So that gives like this communication uh aspect of like there's a lot of metaphors here to build these names. These are all metaphors. uh I feel, like I'm actually reading poetry here, to build up like a good justification, uh but it's yes, it's a name that is workable.

B

If someone searches for satellite realm, I don't think they would find like anything else for the web, like oh satellite bram is actually this other unrelated thing that they they would not have this accident um and yeah, and yet, like still stick with the realm uh at the end, and for that, if people just want to keep it like web, like constructor, we also have shadow realm.

B

uh Just following like uh the band of like we have shadow dome.

C

So I was, let me ask about that one. So if there is an actual analogy there that's interesting, but I know what the shadow dom is, and I know what these things are that we're talking about, and I don't see the analogy.

B

Yeah, that's the thing: it's not exactly a shadow though it might give like the different uh aspect. This is the the weakest uh suggestion of the summary that I'm bringing, but I mean.

C

Is there any I I is there an analogy at all I mean. Is there any way in which these things are similar concepts.

B

No, it's more like the shadow realm. Would not it's like just something to give an idea, you're creating a synthetic realm. That is not the main realm, so the shadow realm would be uh not the main one. It's something shadowing, it's more like using the same analogy. It's like a mirror realm.

B

C

B

Name, all of them has imperfections. So yes, okay,.

C

Okay, so given, given that it sounds like it's making an analogy to shadow dom and in fact there is zero analogy there. I think that's a fatal problem for shadow realm.

B

Yeah yeah and that's what it makes like this suggestion that the weakest one of this list that I bring here.

C

C

D

Sorry, just just to try to understand the at least the analogy that I understand with shadow dom is that there is some sort of encapsulation um that someone is in control. You put some implementation details in a separate space, and then you have some ways to interact with it.

D

This is the way that I see shadow dom and it seems that that is not very different from what we do in a realm where we have a one piece that controls the other in some degree, whatever the other is doing internally, you don't have much of a saying, but you can interact with it in some degree. So it's shadowing the internals of what's happening beyond the edge of what you see.

D

That's the way I see it.

C

Okay well, thank you, that's what I was looking for. In that case, I remove. I withdraw my objection to shadow realm.

B

I have one pet peeve over a satellite realm that is like, especially as a like having english as a second language, I hate the double l on satellite. This is a pet beef. uh This is not like a strong argument, but like as a champion. No it is it. It is for.

D

B

Reason I would prefer shadow realm instead of a satellite realm yeah.

D

First of all, that war is very difficult to pronounce to anyone who, who, native speaking spanish, so satellite is very difficult. It takes a while for you to get even close, um so that's a legitimate concern. I would say.

E

I I actually have one concern with a satellite: rail is, if you consider it in uh the context of compartments and agents, and so on, a compartment would be the one creating a new uh global and module map um having a realm which is technically bigger than that a satellite feels like something small and and so having a realm, that's encompassing compartments being smaller than what a compartment would be named. It feels awkward to me um if you go in the galaxy of uh of things.

E

uh Agent would be a universe, uh an agent cluster, metaverse or whatever the compartment would be a globe for global, but then the satellite, which sits in between the universe and the globe that doesn't fit in uh in universe terms.

D

Yeah I have similar similar concern, plus the the fact that you can create a rom inside another rom. So when it comes to a satellite, then kind of doesn't give me the the mental model that I can just continue, creating more and more of these and and have them going around the one that creates them yeah. So.

C

uh So actually I I don't understand uh the certainly these things create each other, and that does seem weird with the satellite analogy, but I don't think of the other realms as inside. I just I think.

D

It's not inside it's just it's just uh uh it's just in the case of satellite, like it's just around it right.

C

Okay, it just it's: it's a tree of creation, realms, create realms, but they're, but they're, not in any sense nested um other than historically, according to their creation.

F

So so something I I keep coming back to is we we originally landed on the word realm, because- and people should correct me if my understanding is wrong here, uh because that was a term used in the fi262 spec internally and in fact, a lot of this is kind of continuing in the tradition of uh expanding the language by taking uh internal abstractions that are in the spec and bringing them out into the api.

F

um But of course, in the course of doing that, we made various refinements and uh both both generalizations and and and restrictions on what this meant and- and so now we've got this thing, which is a distinct concept unto itself, and so a question that occurs to me to ask is: how does what we end up with uh differ from the thing that is referred to in the spec as a realm and could whatever characterizes that difference, be used as a as a modifier, rather than a word like satellite or shadow.

C

So the biggest difference is the callable boundary.

C

The fact that that these things are created by a standard api uh doesn't make doesn't by itself make the thing that is created different than the realm and the spec. But the fact that there is uh this enforced separation by the callable boundary is quite a difference from the realm of the spec rom. The spec has to account and has to continue to account for the semantics of direct object-object interactions between realms, uh even though that is not a possible consequence of realms created by this api.

F

So so, how much of the callable boundary component of the design is um sort of what I would of course say. I'm kind of biasing things a little bit here, but but uh sort of core functionality, and how much of that is a a thing that was done to overcome uh various objections that people had.

C

Well, to the people who had the objections, it's core functionality and for.

F

C

Of us it was there to appease them.

F

Right right um and if the callable is the caller, because the thing is the callable boundary thing is a relatively very recent addition to the to the spec um and before we added callable boundaries. Was there any significant difference between the spec realm and this thing.

G

F

G

So, to put this in perspective, there is an actual pr that lets us do a non-callable one by just changing a few wordings in the spec like it's. It's just the way that uh realm setups are done required a more significant pr, so.

F

A proposal I'm just I'm just wondering if, if the, if the uh whatever the impedance mismatch, is between spec realms and and this thing, we're trying to name uh is could be could be used as a as a generator of knowledge.

C

Yeah, it's kind of me, the the coral boundary it's kind of like an air gap or something it's saying that these things you know interact and communicate, but they can never quite touch each other. I don't I that's you know I don't. I don't know what to derive from that physical analogy. So I.

B

A

C

B

Let me let me uh let me try to bring back one of the perspectives here and uh more context. Why I'm actually summarizing these current names uh and the goals? The goal here is finding like it's. Actually, my main goal is actually ending the discussion over uh renaming realms because I just don't like my main goal- is not to block the proposal because we are actually trying to find a good name, uh as I mentioned before, realms itself would be a word, a name that would work for me.

B

I'm actually uh working on this uh bike shed in order to make make sure uh the all of these is observed, but my preference is just not to block uh the proposal because of the name um yeah.

F

Personally, I I like just calling it realm and yes that seems like it simplifies a lot of other yes stuff.

B

Yes and uh all the other names that I'm suggesting here are names that are, I have not identified any strong objections. There are some other a lot of other names like even calling a callable boundary. There was one of my first suggestion, a lot of other names that I actually found objections even for these names. Here I consulted with dominic uh partially in public as like. There would be no objections for uh the current suggestions.

B

Actually dominic prefers uh bobo. I think karelia also prefers bob bubble, which is one of the reasons I'm bringing it here. Those are names that would not find like uh not that so far I have not identified uh strong objections and I think what we need to stick here is that like do, we have any strong objections about a name or that I think we found like a good argument uh in favor and also against uh satellite realm in this.

B

In this call, I wonder uh for days as well if we actually uh have the same thing like anything, strong against shadow pro shadow realm or uh or bubble. I it's really like bubble is not my main preference here, but I think in this way I would lean towards a shadow realm, but yeah so yeah.

D

So a couple of a couple of notes: I was hoping that in this meeting we could get the chance to talk about the different names that we narrowed down or the layout was able to narrow down. Then pick one choose one and then go into the plenary and say hey. This is what this group recommends.

D

These are the candidates. This is the one that we recommend, rather than opening the discussion.

B

D

Not expect people to choose that, because that we know how that that will go.

A

Would we like to close out with a.

E

Before closing, I would like to bring one suggestion uh that I don't know if it's actually been considered uh is composing bubble and calling it realm bubble. uh It should solve the search and uh it does keep the idea of the callable boundary for the realm and it keeps realm around.

A

Are all right? uh I.

B

I need to suggest that.

A

Yeah, um I think I second daniel's my uh suggestion in chat that I wouldn't I I that I would be more delighted to see this feature make make progress than I would be dismayed by any of these names having been chosen.

A

um uh That said, I think that wow.

D

Yeah, if I have to choose from that from the at least, I would probably choose shadowrun. um uh The bubble is fine, but.

A

D

A

I'm thinking uh yeah, I I'm thinking that I might my personal favorite is realm. um uh Anybody wish to to chime in.

B

Favorite uh alternatives, I think everyone's everyone here would be okay with realm, so I would need someone to be able.

A

B

Like their favorite alternative sure.

A

For for for an alternate, I think satellite realm is the strongest, in my opinion,.

F

So so uh remind me who who's objecting to just realm, because it feels like we're we're responding to something that maybe there isn't like.

D

The the situation there is that the the concept of a rom uh in the web is very different from the one in tc39 or in 262. It's very different and.

G

The concern there.

D

Was that the this overloaded term um will cause issues for people uh trying to make sense.

A

Certainly, it certainly will muddy the water for future efforts, because realm is so tightly coupled uh across many many concerns on the web um that are not concerns going forward for some of our proposals uh assess motivated proposals have no, um we we don't want to have our have we get to give the impression that we care about, for example, the origin of a realm.

F

Yeah some- and maybe maybe we're specifically thinking of this in terms of a sort of a programming, language, programming and program execution environment concept, as opposed to the the way it's used in the web. I'm wondering if that separation is the thing that the name should should.

A

Sure the separation is also a concern about modules, because currently the web called.

F

A code realm I mean that I'm not seriously proposing that, but but but um you know, program realm or some some other modifier, that's more pointing at you know specific technical.

A

One one of the suggestions up has been intrinsic realm for to beg that distinction, as opposed to say, global realm, which would be a compartment in. In any case. I think that we've played this topic out for the day, um because we're definitely out of clock. um uh Does anybody wish to get anything in on the record before we close.

B

I can just say my conclusion: I feel like shadow realm seems at least uh after this meeting shadow realm is seeming like the least problematic one to move forward with is, if I have to go through a strong candidate.

A

All right, thank you, everyone, that's our meeting.