would be nice: import from archive

[Paul Rubin]

aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli) writes:
> > I guess I better check into what Java does about this.  It's been a
> > while since I've used Java, but I seem to remember that signing is not
> > mandatory.  
> 
> OK, but it might make for a nice optional feature anyway.

Well, in Java, jars are the only thing you can import from, and you
need to be able to import from unsigned ones or else you have to sign
them all the time.  If we use a naming convention, then if you want an
unsigned archive you can just name it .zip instead of .jar.  But
still, I better check.  I do remember that in Javascript (which also
used jar files under the Netscape browsers of the day), you could load
code from unsigned jars and the code could do normal operations.  But
code that did "dangerous" operations wouldn't run unless it was loaded
from a signed jar file.