On Sun, 31 Mar 2002, David Chase wrote:
> At 03:09 PM 3/30/2002 -0500, Bijan Parsia wrote:
> >Learning how to explore Squeak from the app into the code is a key
> >"aha" moment, in my experience. Obviously, you haven't gotten there
> >yet. It might be interesting to know what books/articles/whatever you used
> >so we can rectify them a bit.
> 
> Didn't use any.  Just picked it up, and started poking at it.

I'm told that phychology students are often told on their first day: "people
don't read the instructions until they get stuck". Looks like you've gone past
this!

Please, please, read the instructions! (The books and all the tutorials linked
to from www.squeak.org.)

Oddly, I think the main issue with Squeak is a mind set thing (rather like
those who complain about Linux/BSD because it doesn't behave like a Windows
application). Someone who approaches with a child's view might play about with
the games, with the drumming bunny, and so on first. That way they'd get an
idea of what the mouse did, and what the code looked like. I'd not approach a
Python interpreter without reading some kind of instruction first (what?!! You
mean the indents do something?). 

Once you find the source code, it's pretty much straightforward Smalltalk
(which may be a little ideosyncratic in this day and age, but is hardly off
the wall).

The issue is probably further compounded in that Squeak isn't just an IDE, but
a quasi Operating System (it'll be a real OS soon enough) a set of
applications, and some source code tools. Furthermore, there are several ways
(etoys, MVC, Morphic) in.

> Please understand (and I can see how it would fit your model of
> the world not to believe this) I am actually trying to figure
> this out, and I am actually quite good at figuring things out.
> I've fixed Other People's Bugs in everything from Gosling Emacs,
> to device drivers in the LSI-11 FuzzBall OS, to a DVI-to-PDF
> converter in MikTeX, to David Gay's floating point-to-string
> conversion code.  If it's not easy for me, you've got a problem.
> This feels like an Adventure Game, not a user interface.

I think this is the main problem: you're approaching Squeak as an expert (and,
to be sure, someone far more experienced than me). Maybe you could try
approaching it like a child. 

> (Gcc, astoundingly, is written in K&R C.)  They
> are not even willing to risk that minimal a change.

Actually, I think it's written in pretty damn ANSI compliant C. <g> And I think
RMS has other changes in his mind's eye!

It has to be written in something, it has to be fast and ultra portable. Seems
like a fair choice to me!

Cheers

John
-- 
They're afraid, very afraid......
According to CRN magazine, Microsoft staff discovering Linux in use
will have now access to a special 'escalation' team.
Now, where did I put that stake and mallet?
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/01/16/0310222&mode=nocomment