I don't understand the talk about methodClass, objectClass, variableClass, commentClass.
the idea is that RING represents source code entities: methodDefinition, classDefinition, ... not the object actually running but to have an API that is the same for runtime and declarative entities so that all the tools can work on representation and runtime entities. Veronica is proposing (and I like that to have always a systematic way to accessible the entity) aMethodDefinition theClass versus aMethodDefinition actualClass for everybody But more important right now in CompiledMethod we have compiledMethod>>methodClass this convention is not really good since we do not have a polymorphic message: following this pattern we would end up with methodClass, variableClass, packageClass and we would have to always test so she propose to have theClass aCompiledMethod theClass will return the class of the compiledMethod (Point>>#x:) theClass -> Point But also that aMethodDefinition theClass returns the Class represented by aMethodDefinition className And by convention aVariable theClass .... May be this is not 100% exact because I'm hurry but this is the idea: having a polymorphic way to access parent.