Abstraction problem in Date class

For the Date package maintainers I've found a slight flaw that prevents proper inheritance of the Date class if you are extending it (as I am to try and preserve the original Pear package as much as possible). For example, in the after method is the following line of code: if(Date::compare($this,$when) == -1) return true; If I have overloaded the compare method (which I have) then my extended class will fail. The compare method should be called like this to provide proper inheritance/overloading properties: if($this->compare($this,$when) == -1) return true; A similar, but much more extensive, problem exists if I want to create an extended Date_calc class. There are to many embedded Date_calc:xxx calls in the Date class to make this feasible and I am force to 'tweak' the Pear source (which I'd like to avoid). Could the Date_calc utility methods not be a part of the Date class itself? Regards, Andrew Eddie