[Vm-dev] Request: VM support for opening browser

[Torsten Bergmann]

Esteban wrote
>> Well... I also disagree with the argument of safeness. 
> 
> Exactly, Pharo is inherently "unsafe" so to speak, you can
> - remove arbitrary methods
> - add arbitrary new classes
> - change methods at will
> - swap any two objects...

We dont talk about the safeness of the image here! 
Its always easy to compromise an image with #become: and 
friends. This is clear as spring water. 

We talk about how "unsafe" is it to allow Smalltalk
to harm the external platform. 

There are two point of views:

 1. One can include FFI or other mechanisms in image/VM by 
    default and allow external calling right from Smalltalk.
    I think this is the way we go for Pharo to align
    with .NET, Java and friends. 

 2. Others my see the virtual machine as a clear separator
    between the image and the platform. 
    The VM defines the protocol/contract between the image 
    and the underlying platform to make sure they work 
    together seamlessly

Both are valid POV's. The first option can be seen as more "unsafe"
since you can not control (from VM side) what gets called in 
the outside platform.

With option 2 the virtual machine has more control for instance
when running in a sandbox (browser, the cloud, ...)

Take netstyle.ch for example: they modified the virtual machine 
to be more restrictive (only run on specific sockets, writing
only to relative directories) so they could run images in 
sandboxed environment on "http://seasidehosting.st".
 
So will we discuss "unsafety" or "will we support URL opening
directly from the VM" ...

If it is too much work then forget my request. One can circumvent
it using ConfigurationOfExternalBrowser. But I thought it may
be helpfull to more controlled/restricted (Option 2) environments 
too.

Bye
T.