Rosemary Michelle Simpson wrote:

On Sat, 30 Jun 2001, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:

...

On Sat, 30 Jun 2001, John Hinsley wrote:

...

This seems a good compromise, but I wonder if people go to Mark's book because of Squeak or to Squeak because of Mark's book?

I bought Mark's book because of squeak. However, friends who don't squeak have shown interest in buying/borrowing the book, so their introduction would be through Mark. However, we are discussing a tutorial seperate from that book, so if people can get to the tutorial, then they should be able to also upgrade their squeak.

However, it makes sense to stay with the Squeak 2.8 that is on the CD while you are working with the book and its exercises/example code. When learning a new language, especially one as different from most as is Squeak, it seems wise to not change the language version in mid-stream. Having said that I must confess that I jumped all the way to the 3.1 alpha because I wanted the "class comments with it" facility. Still, I kept the 2.8 image and use it in conjunction with the book.

Again, that seems a good compromise: if I was sensible I might go that way. Not being a compromising kinda person I think I'll try the code with 3.1! I may well fall flat on my face (not unusual!) but I can always chicken out/ask for help.

In some ways, as soon as we start to use something with a lead time as long as a book, or a course, we're stuck in this kind of bind. If I try and do it my awkward way it's because I'm awkward and have really bad memories of doing Java with the old AWT (which, I later discovered, no-one "really" uses -- and no wonder!) and learning C on DOS and discovering that none of that non-ANSI compliant code they taught you, none of those calls to DOS kludge libraries, could be made to work with any degree of ease on any operating system where C still held any degree of sway. Ouch! It still hurts.

Cheers

John