> Apparently, as an aside, I'm told that VisualWorks experimented with
> adding:
> 
>         Object>>new
> 
>         self species new
> 
> But that was later removed, apparently.  Ugh.  That hack just looks
> trouble waiting to happen. :)

It depends on how you look at it. If you assume that each object is an
exemplar for its class (e.g., sort of a prototype) then it makes perfect
sense. I'd expect that most people simply couldn't get used to it because
they're focused on a 'class oriented' rather than an 'object oriented'
system.

Cheers,
  - Andreas