[Squeak] Need for GUI-Building-Tool

Andrew C. Greenberg werdna at mucow.com
Mon Jul 15 15:41:59 UTC 2002


On Monday, July 15, 2002, at 05:33 AM, Chris Burkert wrote:

>> Documentation, that's what we need.
>
> !!! YES !!!
> Nothing against Wikis, but many links are dead, much of the Information
> is to old or written for Insiders. Forget about good or even existing
> ClassComments ... most Squeakers believe the System is describing itself
> and don't write some words ... I don't think that Squeak describes
> itself !

Actually, Squeak does an awesome job of describing itself.  It's 
introspection and code examination tools are awesome (its a bit of a 
reach to say unparalleled, but they are awesome).  Squeak is also, for 
the most part, extremely well-written -- once you know how to code 
Smalltalk\, you know how to read it.  Virtually any answer you might 
want to a system question is best, and most effectively found in the 
code.

The problem is documentation, I agree, but I think it is not necessarily 
the documentation or lack of it for particular features (although those 
kinds of tutorials are also quite valuable).

In my view, Squeak needs better documentation that teaches "how to fish" 
rather than "giving readers a fish," so that they readers may more 
quickly take the step from newbie user to intermediate code browser more 
effectively.  Squeak will tell you most of what you need to know, once 
you know where to look for things.  BUT, too much of that functionality 
is hidden for lack of documentation.

This could be a chapter in an overall tutorial of exceptional value, and 
one of these days -- if nobody else will soon -- I'm going to write it.




More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list