"Smalltalk for C programmers"

Stefan Matthias Aust sma at 3plus4.de
Thu Feb 10 20:58:25 UTC 2000


I think most of you missed the point.  Don't put yourself into the trap of
language wars.  You'll lose.  No need to argue about.

Giovanni however is right that Smalltalk is different compared to most
other languages and that this is a barrier.  It's a good idea to try to
tear down this barrier.

I'd suggest a book title like

The Key to Smalltalk
  A programmer's guide

for a small booklet which tries to address the issues without trying to
compare languages in favor of Smalltalk.

The secret of success of languages like VisualBasic or Python is that
people think these languages are easy because everybody tells them this.
It doesn't matter whether it's true or not.  It's a kind-of self-fulfilling
prophecy.  A psychology-thing IMHO.  Do it the same.

(BTW, I actually agree with statement, too.  I like VB, even my mother got
a basic understanding and could read simple progams I wrote for her.  And
Python is simply cool.  If you know basic, pascal or C you can write our
first own program in minutes.  You can start with small function and later
on move to objects and even meta programming)

Back on topic, the book should focus only on C but on typical procedural
languages like C, Java, Pascal or Basic.  Languages most people know.

Most people don't want to learn completely new things.  They want to apply
there knowledge.  Otherwise, they would feel dumb again that a feeling
nobody wants to have.  So you have to convince people that they can reuse
most or at least some of their knowledge.  People want to feel smart.  Help
them to feel so by providing an incremental approach which shows them that
they know alot an can apply this to Smalltalk to know even more.

Don't focus on the object-magic of "3+4" being a message send or the
miracle of conditionals by message dispatch.  Lie to them and call
ifTrue:ifFalse: a statement.  Simplify blocks to want they are in Pascal.

Show them how to develop application fast.  Show them how to solve problems.

And show them how to use their old program with the new system.

>  6. No one seems has written a similar paper/book, as far  I know...
>
>What do you think?

Go for it.


bye
--
Stefan Matthias Aust  //  Bevor wir fallen, fallen wir lieber auf.





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