I've been thinking this. I'd like to see self-like message access to variables, but, as you point out, that raises the public/private issue. I am currently wondering if lisp-style context nesting wouldn't give me what I wanted--but I don't have any concrete proposals yet.

I think, though, that these changes belong in a new language. Don't get me wrong; I am a die-hard Smalltalker. But there are "rough edges" that I'd like to see smoothed down.

That's why I like to say, "Smalltalk is my second-favorite language. I haven't encountered my favorite language yet."

david

At 12:23 PM 4/11/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>On a more practical point, the idea of using self-like messages to 
>define instance variables would be acceptable IFF those messages were 
>properly private. In order to provide this privacy one would need to 
>implement some mechanism to allow properly private methods and the same 
>mechanism would (very likely) solve the worries about overly public 
>methods already in the system. I'd be quite happy to see such a privacy 
>mechanism if anyone has good ideas.
>
>tim
>-- 
>tim at sumeru.stanford.edu
>
>
>
--
David Farber
dfarber at numenor.com