Noury Bouraqadi <bouraqadi at ensm-douai.fr> wrote on 15.09.2003 08:50:52:

>(2) If by default new does not call initialize (as it is now in 
>Squeak), people can do mistakes. I found 2 or 3 subclasses where the 
>#new method have bee redefined to "super new initialize" while the 
>#new of the superclass does the same thing (i.e. sending initialize 
>to the newly created instance). So, there is a duplicated call of 
>initialize that may lead to undesirable side-effects.
>
>Observation (1) is a prove that people do really need having new 
>trigger initialization. By not providing it, we make people do 
>duplicate code. Observation (2) demonstrate that this duplication not 
>only is space consuming, but its error prone....
>So, my conclusion is that *we need* to have new trigger 
>initialization! 

It is even more error prone if #new is calling #initialize by default. 
It is by far more likely that one forgets OR does not know at all that 
#new 'silently' and against all Smalltalk conventions sends 
#initialize, than that one forgets to have a look at the super 
implementation if he calls it. 

There will be made many mistakes by those who are not accustomed to 
this behavior. 

Additionally I think it is really easy to forget about it: If one 
plans to use #initialize for resetting or preparing later on etc, 
rather than for creating, it may not come to ones mind that during 
creation it is called too. 

Regards
Martin