I have a question: What is stopping you from using them right now today? Most of what you write is for private use, no? If so you can use namespaces until your hearts content. You could even make scripts to change Magritte and co to switch to the namespaces when loaded into your image, so that you don't have to type the prefixes anymore.
Why do you need this to be in the default image to use it for private code?
The same thing that stop me from wanting to over customize any environment, it makes all your code non standard, harder to share, harder to blog about, setting up new images becomes more work, all because no one wants to install something like Namespaces to just try it out.
Namespaces belong in the core, not as an add on package. Why? For the same reason objects belong in the core and not as an add on package, look at Scheme's situation with objects, add on packages just get you *many* incompatible implementations of something where everyone argues endlessly about which to use.
It's shameful to be forced to manually prefix our class names in what *professes* the be the ultimate object oriented language because every time the issue comes up people come out of the wood works to filibuster every attempt at a solution.
I'm behind Gorans proposal because it's the smallest change possible that seems to make just a tiny bit of progress on an otherwise insurmountable mountain of an issue. Every other proposal is a pie in the sky fantasy not on technical merit, but on the social reality of this community. Gorans proposal is the only one that recognizes the *reality* that a big change just isn't going to happen, no matter how technically brilliant it might be.
Ramon Leon http://onsmalltalk.com