The oldest advice I have given over the years (particularly after 
ST-80 went out in the world and was used so unimaginatively) is that 
you should always scratch program first using just a few tools. That 
exercise will often provide a much better sense of the most fruitful 
model. Once there, then it is worth while to look in the class 
library to see if someone has done a neater more efficient 
implementation of some of the subparts.
      IMNSHO most Smalltalkers do far too much poking around in the 
class library too early ....

Cheers,

Alan

-----

At 5:42 PM +0100 4/20/01, Peter Crowther wrote:
>  > From: Stephan B. Wessels [mailto:stephan.wessels at sdrc.com]
>>  Perhaps we all have a varying amount of creative ideas that
>>  would benefit from
>>  the proper instrument?  Even when it's a tool like Squeak.
>
>*Especially* when it's a tool --- or, more generally, toolbox --- like
>Squeak.  Creative flow tends to stop abruptly when the tools to express that
>flow aren't readily to hand or cannot be found, whether that's painting,
>sculpture, music or programming.
>
>One of the great advantages of Smalltalk in general, and Squeak in
>particular, is that the tools are likely to be in the toolbox *somewhere*.
>One of the great *dis*advantages is rummaging around that huge toolbox
>trying to find the tool you want, and knowing that someone's likely to have
>built it in a form much more elegant than the one you just had to build but
>didn't want to spend any time on.  Nobody's entirely solved that particular
>problem, although the code-fragment-locating tools in Squeak come the
>closest of any I know.
>
>		- Peter