Re: private methods: your opinion wanted

On Wed, 28 Aug 2002 09:30:30 -0500 (Central Daylight Time) Aaron
<reic0024@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Wed, 28 Aug 2002, Karl Ramberg wrote:
> 
> > I think private methods usually are in the
> private category, and not
> > necessary
> > have a selector name indicating it's private.
> 
[...]

> After the original message was posted, I tried
> it out, created a
> class-side method on a class, #pvtInspectMe,
> which simply does a ^ 'hello'
> inspect.  I then tried calling it in a
> workspace with Object pvtInspectMe,
> and Squeak told me that it was private, with a
> compilation error. That is,
> it expanded to something like Object *Private
> methods cannot be called
> like this.* pvtInspectMe.
> 
> Aaron
> 
> 
> 
The compilation error comes from MessageNode >> pvtCheckForPvtSelector:
encoder,  which checks for the 'pvt' at the beginning of the method.  This is
what I was asking, that given a clean slate, should code be written to take
advantage of having private methods like this.  

But while I didn't give method categories as an option in the first question,
Karl is right that this is the way it is done most of the time.  But it is
kind of a "soft" private, as opposed to a "hard" private that gives an error.

So, if people prefer categories labeled private to actual private methods, you
can state that too.