> From: Alan Kay [mailto:Alan.Kay at disney.com]
[...]
>       IMNSHO most Smalltalkers do far too much poking around in the 
> class library too early ....

Interesting... the Smalltalk course I taught (but didn't write) spent a day
on the language and environment, and two days on the class library.  It
feels wrong to do that, but you're trying to force people up the learning
curve quickly.

Alan, you've been at this longer than many of us; what do you think the
learning curve looks like for different languages and for different
environments?  For example, I've heard it said that it takes a comparatively
long time to become proficient with Smalltalk; but what is usually meant is
Smalltalk and the file system and MVC and collections and the rest of that
rather large class library.  By contrast, someone can be assessed as
'proficient' with C++ when they know the language, regardless of the large
collection of libraries they'll have to learn in order to get it to do
anything interesting.

Comparing apples with rollerskates?  Or are there shapes to the curve?

		- Peter