Alan Mortensen wrote:
> 
> I'm having difficulties tinkering around with Smalltalk after being a
> long term Java developer.  My biggest problem is with typing (as in
> class types)... how do you know what to pass methods?  Often I see
> parameter names like aRectangle.. so I guess that's clear.. but what if
> it's something like aBounds..

Well, it's not a typed language. So you can send any parameter providing
it's in the class's protocol. If not, up pops the debugger:
MessageNotUnderstood.

There is a link to a nice little Smalltalk (Squeak, in fact) for Java
programmers page off the www.squeak.org page.

> 
> I guess if more methods were documented it would be easier.  All I know
> is right now I'm having great difficulty using the available classes
> without finding external documentation on a web page somewhere.

It's probably worthwhile looking at Jason Steffler's Linux Gazette
tutorials (a Google for Jason Steffler should bring it up -- sometimes I
think that Linux Gazette really owns Google!). One free book I like is
Ivan Tomek's Joy of Smalltalk

http://wiki.cs.uiuc.edu/VisualWorks/Joy+of+Smalltalk

And although it's based on Visual Works, so the GUI/UI stuff won't work
without tweaking, most of the code will  run fine (and I suspect that
it's code you want).

Both of the Prentice Hall Squeak books are jewels and at least one of
them is online 

http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/squeakbook/


> 
> Oh as a side note, how is smalltalk doing these days usage-wise?  I know
> Java has blown up in usage and may outpace C++ soon, but Smalltalk has
> just been chuggin' along since the early days.  I had heard that up
> until like 98 there had been steady growth but no one's been talking
> about its marketshare since.

Hard to say. I'd imagine that the big issue is that so much Smalltalk
use is in house and vertical, so it doesn't get seen that much.

Cheers

John

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