To that end, we've eliminated the Class.extend and Class.mixin  
methods, improved the Class.create syntax, and changed the way you add  
methods to existing classes.  The API is still backwards-compatible  
with all pre-1.6 versions of Prototype.  We haven't changed the way  
inheritance works, and you still access superclass methods using the  
special $super argument.

The biggest change is that all classes (as in the objects returned by  
Class.create(), not instances of those objects) now have a method  
named "addMethods."  This method takes a single argument, an object  
whose properties become instance methods and properties for all  
instances of the class.

For example, in 1.6.0_rc0, where you'd write:

   var Foo = Class.create();
   Class.extend(Foo, { /* instance methods */ });

We've changed this so you now write:

   var Foo = Class.create();
   Foo.addMethods({ /* instance methods */ });

As in 1.6.0_rc0, you can still add instance methods directly from  
Class.create:

   var Foo = Class.create({ /* instance methods */ });

Also unchanged from 1.6.0_rc0, you can inherit from a superclass by  
passing the class as the first argument to Class.create (and you can  
optionally specify instance methods afterwards):

   var Bar = Class.create(Foo);
   var Baz = Class.create(Foo, { /* instance methods */ });

Internally, Prototype calls addMethods on the newly created class to  
add instance methods passed to Class.create.

Finally, we've modified Class.create to take a variable number of  
arguments, so you can now specify multiple collections of instance  
methods to add to the class, in order.  This is useful for adding  
mixins to the class before defining your own methods:

   var Bar = Class.create(Foo, Enumerable, SomeMixin, { /* instance  
methods */ });
   var Baz = Class.create(Enumerable, { /* instance methods */ });

1.6.0_rc1 will be released very soon with these changes, and while we  
can't make any guarantees, we've no plans to change the API before the  
final release of 1.6.0 (particularly since these changes are being  
documented right now in Christophe Porteneuve's upcoming "Prototype &  
Scriptaculous" book).

-sam

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