From: Christoph <chr_mail@...>
Date: 2003-12-06T05:12:26+09:00
Subject: Re: Attempted roadmap of future instance variables....

Nathaniel Talbott wrote:
...
> In this case it is trivial to alias the super-class method if 
> I need continued access to the super-classes implementation. 
> I don't know of a way that could be done for instance 
> variables. More importantly, though, I think instance 
> variables are fundamentally a different construct than 
> methods. I'm having difficulty precisely delineating the 
> differences (internal vs. external?), but I just don't think 
> you can compare the potential problems from method overriding 
> with those of instance variable shadowing. They certainly 
> have commonalities, just as apples and oranges are both 
> fruit, but they have quite different cores.

I am not sure if this philosophical difference
is really so deep - in fact some languages, the 
most widely used is probably JavaScript (okay,
maybe that's an argument against my point:-)
don't distinguish between data and methods
at all. 

> 
> I still think namespaces are a good place to look for the 
> answer to class local instance variables (and perhaps class 
> local methods, too).


Maybe,  but this almost feels like an overkill to me? 


/Christoph