Stephane Ducasse <ducasse at iam.unibe.ch> wrote:
	So people do not listen again because if they would read the wiki page 
	our plans are clear. If those people would read the emails in the SqF 
	mailing-list (some are there too) they will know our intentions also.
	
To complain that people didn't read some wiki page is one thing;
to complain that they don't read e-mail is another.

I am overwhelmed by the amount of e-mail in the ordinary squeak
mailing list; the last thing I need is to be told to read another
mailing list as well.
	
	But have you looked at the code inside Squeak?

Yes.

	really!  I can tell you that some parts are really scary.

Indeed.  You can put that in neon lights.

	Now in Squeak changing cleaning things are hard. I think that all the 
	efforts around modules packages are ***key*** for the future.
	
This sounds very much as though you *are* considering changes to the
core language.  I was expecting someone to argue that instance variable
encapsulation should be done just as a special case of a general
method encapsulation facility, which is needed anyway as part of a good
modules/packages design.

	Research is not about consensus but about sound discussions.

Given that Self exists, and as existed for quite a few years now,
it is not clear to me that "accessing instance variables only through
publically visible accessor methods" counts as research any more.
(This is one of the strong reasons why the interpretation "they want
to change Squeak" was so very VERY natural; since this is an old idea,
why would they be talking about changing "the" Smalltalk compiler
in the Squeak mailing list and about the consequences for Squeak if
they didn't want the old idea to be applied _to_ Squeak?)

It has been done.  You end up with a programming language that some
people find elegant and highly usable, and some people find "simplified"
to the point of making it hard to use.  This is already known.  What
new information about the desirability or practicality of the change
would be obtained by making this change to a Smalltalk compiler?
If it is to be done, why not start from the Smalltalk compiler that
comes with Self?