Many years ago there was a proposal in the Squeak mailing list about enforcing
a naming convention, "pvt",�� I implemented that in my Smalltalk system.�� The
compiler enforces the rule that pvt.[A-Z].* message can only be sent to
(self|super) (basicNew|basicNew: n|new|new: n|pvtNew: n)?
in a class method or
(self|super) ((class (new|new: n)|pvtSpeciesNew: n|pvtClone)?
in an instance method.
There are currently
9412 public selectors
��793 pvt* selectors and
�� ��23 private* selectors,
where the last group is methods that I *want* to be private in some sense but
cannot do with this machinery.�� (For example, calling a "private" method on
another object known to be of the same class.)

I think the evidence shows that this works well enough to be useful, even if it
isn't quite as expressive as I'd like.�� And what *that* means is that
this can be
done with a style check, using the machinery Pharo already has for style checks.



On Wed, 18 Aug 2021 at 08:14, Craig Johnson <craig@hivemind.net> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
>
> Just a newb off-the-wall question.
>
> Is there any good reason why we can't create a true private method in a
> Pharo class by putting that method inside an instance or class variable
> as a lambda (block).
>
>
> This would reduce one of my biggest bugbears with Pharo, namely the
> pollution of the global namespace with every single message name in the
> entire system.
>
>
>
> Craig