Documents with Superpowers

Increasingly we are agreeing with strangers to do business online. Web-based cloud applications assume we running trusted code. Meltdown and Spectre was a Message In A Bottle. We need to put JavaScript in a Bottle to enable robust web-apps for this era. Quip has taken steps to do so.

Quip: Introduced Live Apps, which enables people to embed a variety of content onto a Quip page, turning it into a Digital Canvas for collecting information in context on a single page. page

Live Apps look like the very first implementation of Dr. SES (Distributed resilient Secure ECMAScript). Catapulting secured robust apps into nextgen. By integrating services outside your company inside Salesforce with a composite Quip document.

Marketing... "With Live Apps, Quip docs are now packed with tons of unique tools you've never had in a document before. You can embed polls and calendars, annotate images, track your next project, and bring your favorite third-party apps right into Quip — then collaborate on them with comments and @mentions. Live Apps save you from the need to toggle back and forth between windows just to get work done." page

Technical...

One might ask how the dots join up. About 10 years ago Caja was created by Mark S Miller to sanitize JavaScript in OpenSocial standards apps. Now after 10 years of careful changes to JavaScript standards toward language defensive object-capabilities with adoption by the Browser manufacturers. Salesforce has solved the Locker Problem. Moving a collection of extremely modular web documents towards a robust composition into document with super powers. of Aggregated json data and javascript from different trusted servers are collected into cloud-based web app (or digital canvas).

How did Salesforce leapfrog industry peers?

Salesforce is a member of TC39 the EcmaScript standards committee driving JavaScript. Experiments are implemented to solve web browser security problems well ahead of standards adoption. Eventually after standards are agreed and adopted by browser manufacturers. New application innovations follow. Notably Node.js was built on Google's V8 JavaScript engine. page

Skilled leadership also makes a huge difference. Quip was headed up by Bret Taylor, formerly at Google Maps, FriendFeed, Facebook CTO (at the IPO), Quip, and now SalesForce. bio

Takeaway

In enterprise applications we care deeply about trusted business. The 'NeXTStep' at SalesForce could be composing a document with superpowers from businesses with trusted and untrusted servers. Steps toward a robust composition driven by standards contributors and informed adopters. The fuse is lit.

YOUTUBE mGWwpz7OINc 10 years ago...Mission Impossible.