Re: CLOS, and slot hiding.

[Danny Bobrow <Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM>]

I agree with the comments made by Moon about the design goals of CLOS.  Alan
Snyder made a big pitch for having encapsulation be an important goal for the
Common Lisp community, and it was rejected.  One reason is that it was hard (as
Moon mentioned) and another is because it does not fit into the philosophy of
Lisp, which has always prided itself on being an open system (this is the point
that Jim made so well).

The metaobject protocol (Chapter 3) is designed to allow people to experiment
with additions and variations on the language.  Jim Kempf put Common Objects on
top of CLOS using the MOP, and Common Objects has some of the properties you are
talking about (if I understand you properly). Do you have a real example in
mind?
   

  danny