Hi Ned,

> Perhaps I missed it, but I don't recall you addressing Richard's 
> suggestion of adopting your change but using some other selector than 
> #initialize to avoid breaking existing code.
> 
> Its name is unimportant, as long as it's not already being used 
> somewhere as an instance method.

Its name is the single most important thing there is. We want to educate
existing users and therefore we have to adopt (and partly change) existing
patterns. Those patterns center around the use (or abuse) of initialize -
everything else would be just Another Useless Selector (tm) which I would
strictly oppose. The new/initialize pattern makes only sense if it is used
for all of the existing and future code people get to see when they look at
Squeak. Otherwise it's completely and utterly pointless - if you don't want
to change people's habits why make the change at all?

> What do you think of this idea?

I hate it like mad ;-)

Cheers,
  - Andreas