Hi Dwight & company.

[Dwight Hughes]:

"Norton, Chris" wrote:
> 
> Actually, if we take the pains to put methods into well chosen categories,
> we could obviate much newbie-related confusion.  E.g. put the public
methods
> into the "public" category!  Voila!  A self documenting interface!

Not if the "public" (or "private") category _replaces_ the proper
informative method protocols -- it should be additional info, which
could be shown in a number of ways (font colors, colored markers,
filters that show only public methods,....) along with the method
protocols.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I guess I expected that y'all would just know what was floating around in my
mind  ;-).

When I write Smalltalk methods in VSE, I usually classify them in categories
that describe their function (intention revealing categories, if you will).
For example:

Instance side:
   initialization
   printing
   public-accessing
   public-testing
   private-accessing
   private-testing

Class side:
   creation

My rules of thumb are as follows:
*	If the method is intended to be private, then I create/use a
category that indicates this, like "private-accessing".
*	If I have already got methods in a category called "accessing", then
I rename this category to "public-accessing".
*	If all of the methods of a certain type are considered to be public,
then I will generally name the category by its function, like "printing"

My VSE browser creates sub-views (sort of like Bob Arnings hierarchical
morph does), when it encounters a hyphenated word.  This nice feature "rolls
up" my categories into "public" and "private", or whatever you've decided to
name your top level category.

---==> Chris