Hi!

"Joshua 'Schwa' Gargus" <schwa at cc.gatech.edu> wrote:
[SNIP]
> > And 'nothing' is nil - the undefined
> > object. Besides, returning self by default is a horrible mess when you think
> > about security as you are constantly leaking authority.
> 
> I don't see how.  Whoever sends a message to an object must already
> have a reference to that object, so if that object returns self by
> default, it's not telling the sender anything it doesn't already know.


Perhaps Andreas refers to the situation when the client returns the
result of a messagesend. If that send suddenly returns self then that
object is also returned outside of the client.

Or something. :-) Personally I haven't reflected much how the difference
in default policy would affect Smalltalk. It feels like a thing that we
wouldn't change unless we also change tons of other stuff and thus are
already "incompatible" with other Smalltalks.

And herein lies of course the problem - how can Squeak evolve away from
Smalltalk without upsetting a very large part of the community? Would it
produce an inevitable fork? Or is the community in fact interested to
finally "move on"?

Traits is one of things on the table that puts this question right out
there...

regards, Göran