When writing code, you can call any function as long as it’s public, and similarly, you can access any object’s public properties or methods. Usually, access to code is all or none – a piece of code can be either public or private. Lately, I’ve been thinking about ways to implement more fine-grained access controls and have looked to the networking world for inspiration…
The idea is neat, and there is a certain precedent for the approach in .htaccess files and webserver path permissions.
Still, I worry about the added burden to keeping track of filenames when they get used as stringed keys in such a manner. More plainly: if I rename a file, I now have to go change every access declaration that mentions it. Sure, a quick
grepwill probably do the trick. But I don’t see a way to have tooling automate any part of it, either.