> >My belief is that if we are prepared to
> >respond quickly by re-introducing inheritance, people will conclude
> >that it was a worthwhile experiment.
>
> Jonathan, I yearn to agree with you on this strategy. But products only get
> one first launch, one chance to get people to lift their eyeballs off their
> current effort to make an assessment of whether you have something they
> should pay attention to...
If it were ommitted from the launch without comment, I concur. I believe that we could survive an inheritance-less alpha as a test case, which is what I had in mind. This is one respect in which I think the early adopters for Open Source stuff may be more tolerant than the population at large.
Still, your point is well taken. May I suggest only that you consider such an alpha as a tactical possibility and discuss the issue through with MarkM. Between the two of you I have complete faith in a good outcome. For that matter, it's a choice of goods.
I would add only that I agree wholeheartedly with Dean Tribble. Either inheritance must be removed entirely from the *concept* space in E, or syntax for it must be retained in the language. Hybrid non-solutions seem to me to be the worst of all possible outcomes.
Jonathan