> I really fail to see how #is: is complex and messy. Really.

well for one thing all #is:-type of attributes have to be centralized in 
one place, the #is: method.

a Morph that isMorph, isBeautiful and isWhatMyUncleLikes has to provide 
the three answers to very different questions in the same place. Now if 
another package needs to know if a Morph isMyCupOfTea, it must override 
aMorph>>#is:

so #is: can not actually safely belong to a single package. while 
#isWhatMyUncleLikes will only be in my package MyUncle, except if 
someone else has the same kind of weird ideas about protocol names.

plus, looking for the senders of #isBeautiful immediately gives me all 
classes responding to the protocol. with the #is: idea, all protocols 
are mangled in one: you have to look at all #is: implementations, in all 
objects (!) to see where you protocol went. if that's not messy, call me 
Joséphine.

regards,

Stef