[Newbies] Concrete classes... multiple users

[John Almberg]

Dave,

Thanks for the positive feedback. Smalltalk is indeed all about fun  
for me, but I'm also on a mission to become more productive in my day  
job as a Ruby designer/programmer. And that mainly means finally  
mastering the whole OO/Design Patterns/Agile approach (i.e., the  
difference between 'knowing' OO, and being really proficient with it.)

Luckily, I had the insight to think maybe it might be smart to use  
Smalltalk as my learning laboratory. Not to pat myself on the back,  
but that was a really smart move!

I'm not sure why it is so, but I find it much easier to learn things  
first in Smalltalk. It's probably a combination of the language  
itself, the environment, but mainly the amazing collection of  
Smalltalk-oriented books that people have written (including Kent)  
and that are available for a pittance, used, on Amazon. I've been  
buying up every Smalltalk book that I can find, and have quite a  
collection at this point.

Once I figure something out in Smalltalk, I find it translates quite  
easily to Ruby, which is also a beautiful language, IMHO, but not as  
good a learning environment.

Anyway, thanks again.

-- John


>
>> So, I think it was a case of falling in love with a cool feature, and
>> then mis-applying it, just because it was dying to be used.
>
> On the contrary, it sounds to me like you approached the problem in
> exactly the right way. You correctly observed that classes can serve
> as factories, so there was no need to invent something new for that
> purpose. You used that understanding to implement a simple solution
> that worked well, and when you encounted a need to support additional
> complexity, you refactored your system to do so. Well done.
>
> One of the things that makes Smalltalk an enjoyable environment is
> that it does not force you to completely understand a problem before
> you get started solving it. You can start simply and move things  
> around
> later on as you improve your understanding and discover your mistakes.
>
>> Hope this explains it... I'm afraid I don't always get the jargon
>> right, but that's why I'm a newbie, I guess!
>
> If you like to think in terms of design patterns, "Smalltalk Best
> Practice Patterns" by Kent Beck is a very useful guide.
>
> Dave
>
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