[Newbies] [semi-OT] (fwd) Re: What Killed Smalltalk?

[Lawson English]

All true, but, as I said, there are assumptions: Squeak/Pharo By Example 
is for total newcomers to programming, or for very experienced 
programmers looking for a fast intro where they can "read between the 
lines" for intermediate/advanced info.

Design Patterns is hardly intermediate either,  I haven't seen Chamon 
Liu's book.


BUT, where are the books/tutorials/material to show you how to go a step 
beyond SbyE's Morphic discussion?

how to make a simpleSliderMorph move another morph across the screen 
isn't immediately obvious, for example.

a simple drawing app example doesn't seem to exist.

the various advanced technologies that Squeak et al. use are not 
accessible to the newcomer, regardless of experience, at least IMHO.

The Seaside book is geared towards people with a great deal of web 
programming experience. Most people with a great deal of web programming 
experience aren't attracted to relatively unused technologies, and 
newcomers to web programming have a hard time understanding how to 
accomplish things using Seaside because they don't know how to 
accomplish anything web-programming related yet.

There is no Squeak equivalent of the Python Cookbook targeted at the 
same level that the Python book is targeted at. Likewise, the 
discussions of Squeak's libraries assume experience experience far 
beyond what Python's library documentation assumes or assume no 
experience at all.

Etc.

The point is that if you want Smalltalk to be used, you have to make 
available the same type and level of teaching materials that other, more 
popular, languages have available.

L.

Tim Johnson wrote:
> Squeak by Example is a great place to start, and it is free.  After that, An Introduction to Seaside is very good.  The Design Patterns Smalltalk Companion puts now-commonplace concepts into context.  Chamond Liu's book is also very good.  Then for some polish, check Kent Beck's Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns.
>
> cheers,
> tim
>
> -original message-
> Subject: RE: [Newbies] [semi-OT] (fwd) Re: What Killed Smalltalk?
> From: Christine Wolfe <cwdw01 at earthlink.net>
> Date: 11/22/2009 9:31 PM
>
> I agree 100%  It seems like most of the documentation is a tutorial or
> example but not a straight forward explanation of how to use it.  Everything
> ends up being trial and error.  I enjoy the language very much and would be
> tempted to use it again but realistically a good comprehensive guide would
> be great. Also, a nice document that describes each class and its methods
> (beyond just the comments included in the class definite itself) would be a
> huge help.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: beginners-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> [mailto:beginners-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org] On Behalf Of Lawson
> English
> Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 8:20 PM
> To: A friendly place to get answers to even the most basic questions about
> Squeak.
> Subject: Re: [Newbies] [semi-OT] (fwd) Re: What Killed Smalltalk?
>
> Steve Wessels wrote:
>   
>> That's right.  Smalltalk hasn't died.  I am fortunate enough to be part of
>>     
> a team developing financial software for many years using Smalltalk.
>   
>> People have predicted Smalltalk's death about as often as Apple's death.
>>
>> I think comparisons between Smalltalk and Java have to take marketing into
>>     
> account.
>   
>> Paying Smalltalk work is harder to find.  Here's an interesting twist.
>>     
> Companies looking for skilled Object Oriented developers, if they understand
> what they need, will seek programmers with Smalltalk experience.
>   
>>   
>>     
>
> Speaking as a long-term script kiddie who likes to collect languages, I 
> can tell you that the main reason(s) why *I* find Smalltalk difficult to 
> use involve(s): lack of documentation, lack of well-documented example 
> code, lack of compsci teaching materials written with Smalltalk for the 
> example code, etc. Notice a trend?
>
> Smalltalk may have been designed to be easy to learn and use, but it has 
> never been adopted by the pedagogical community  of teachers and how-to 
> book-writers, so naturally new programmers (from whom experienced 
> programmers grow) are never attracted to it.
>
> The main issue is lack of ways for new programmers (experienced in other 
> languages or otherwise) to learn not just the syntax of the language, 
> but how to DO stuff with it.
>
> E.G.: I can't grab the Unix Programming or Unix Network Programming 
> books by Stevens and work through Smalltalk equivalents of the example 
> code. There's no Data Structures in Smalltalk books, nor Algorithm 
> Analysis in Smalltalk books, nor build your own virtual world from 
> scratch using Smalltalk and OpenGL, or Game AI in Smalltalk, or... There 
> IS a Numerical Methods book in Smalltalk, but that's hardly 
> beginner/intermediate level, IMHO.
>
> You get the idea. All the reference material for Smalltalk is geared for 
> complete beginners, or for people who are exceedingly experienced. No 
> middle ground.
>
>
> And some of the most interesting (sounding) aspects of Smalltalk, such 
> as the Teatime architecture, are hardly covered in ways that relative 
> newcomers can understand (speaking as a relative newcomer with a 2 year 
> AAS degree and a couple decades intermittent experience programming).
>
> Smalltalk (e.g. Squeak) may not be fast enough to be used in high-end 
> production implementations, but surely it could be the 
> language-of-choice for learning new aspects of compsci and programming. 
> After all, many of these "new aspects" of compsci and programming were 
> originally developed/matured using Smalltalk. Why should people have to 
> go to a less versatile language in order to actually learn to use the 
> results of Smalltalk-based research?
>
>
>
> Lawson
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