Hello,

Lex Spoon wrote:

> Neato!!  What a piece of work!

> How about putting a link on the Swiki somewhere, under "Introductions to
> Squeak" perhaps?

> -Lex

Thank you.

Actually, I am no fan of the Swiki. It may have its uses, but it is not good as
documentation or as introduction to Squeak for newbies. I know, for I lost a lot
of time and a considerable amount of money (telephone-ticks - and I am far from
rich) on the Swiki.

That was indeed one important reason to write Squeak Help. This seems to me a
better way - a better format - to document Squeak. But if it is to become any
good (see the Motto in Squeak Help 02, and my Plan and Prososal) it needs
contributions by others, and needs to grow to something that might easily be 40
MB - of Scamper-friendly html, with lots of code examples, and further goodies
like code that can be filed in, good projects etc.

As regards the Swiki, let me quote the immortal words of Richard O'Keeffe

-- quote

If the next paradigm shift isn't any better documented than the last
one (Morphic, EToys) was, then BUGGER it.

I almost never swear.  I believe this is the first time I've ever used
a swear-word in e-mail.  But here I am, an enthusiastic Smalltalker, a
technophile, keen to play with things and to learn new ways to do things,
and very admiring of Morphic results that I have seen.  And I am just so
FRUSTRATED.

If only there was something like Brent Welch's Tcl/Tk book for Squeak,
*assuming* a basic knowledge of Smalltalk syntax and Collection classes,
explaining Morphic, EToys, Tiles...  A good How-To book with *all* the
information you need, right there in one place.  Something you can
actually get up to speed with, without having a veteran insider as your
teacher.
...

I am getting a bit sick of this.
Scattered, disorganised, and out of date documentation
is, practically speaking, no documentation at all.
It is, at best, a sop to people's consciences.

...

  The next time someone says "let's make a Swiki page to talk about
  documentation" I'm going to vomit.

-- unquote

To which Alan Kay was friendly enough to answer

-- quote

Well, I agree with pretty much everything you've said here -- this is why I
don't complain about lack of adoption of these ideas -- if we don't document
them so that others can use them, then we shouldn't be surprised at the rise of
frustrations such as you describe.

-- unquote

But as I said:  It needs contributions by others, and needs to grow to something
that might easily be 40 MB - of Scamper-friendly html, with lots of code
examples, and further goodies like code that can be filed in, good projects etc.

Regards,

Maarten.

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Maarten Maartensz. Homepage:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~maartens/
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