> I would like to know what you would think of the following change in 
 ...
> remove direct access to instance variables a la self

I think it is a terrible idea.  I agree with Tim in that I have no
objection to your doing it privately; but I have a big objection to
drastic changes to the Smalltalk language in public Squeak.  We have
more than enough lined up to do for the near future just polishing what
we already have, refactoring, pulling modules out of the image,
improving performance.  That we have instance variables is *not a
problem*.

And, while I'm at it, Jecel mentioned name spaces.  Squeak already *has*
name spaces: they are called classes.  You can use the very same name
for a method (or even an instance variable) in different classes and
Smalltalk keeps them separate.  Imagine that!  We already have name
spaces.  If I needed more in the way of name spaces, I would use Common
Lisp.

And, VW added name spaces and look what it achieved.  VW 3.x had the
refactoring browser.  That was thrown away in the move to VW 5.xx
because the addition of name spaces meant the refactoring browser no
longer worked in 5.xx.  For *years* VW did without the refactoring
browser.  Dolphin even had the refactoring browser before VW once again
had it working.  I gather many people refused to upgrade from VW 3.x to
later versions because of the missing refactoring browser (the one that
was *thrown away* due to VW adding name spaces (in case I was being too
subtle and circumspect in making my point)).  (Of course, there were
other reasons not to upgrade to the newer VW, such as Cincom's pricing
structure plus its secretiveness about its pricing structure, but that
could be a separate rant.)

Thank you.  I feel better now.


-- Frank