On Sat, 03 Sep 2005 14:53:08 -0700, Avi Bryant <avi.bryant at gmail.com>  
wrote:

>> A trait is not a run-time entity, just a first class method category.
>
> As I was saying to Daniel a few days ago, I'd love to see tools that  
> really emphasized this view of traits.  I want creating a trait to feel  
> almost exactly like creating a method category: you should just be able  
> to choose "new trait" from the method category column of a browser, give  
> it a name, and see it show up there with the other categories.  Until  
> you add the same trait to some other class, it should be exactly as if  
> it was just a category, just with different naming conventions.  I  
> should be able to drag a category/trait from the method category column  
> of one class to another, to share the trait.  The extra pieces of  
> metadata for a particular application of a trait - aliases, removals -  
> can appear in the text pane of the browser when I select that trait in  
> the category column, and be editable there, rather than being shoved  
> into the class definition.  I think this would be a much lower-impact,  
> more familiar way of integrating traits into the traditional Smalltalk  
> mindset and workflow than treating them as part of the inheritance  
> hierarchy, as they are now.

Ooh. That's a damn cool idea.

Would that mean that Smalltalk categories would have (or reflect, rather)  
semantic value?