Hi Jason,

on Wed, 23 Nov 2005 17:35:51 +0100, you <jason at buddhistheart.org> wrote:

> Greetings All,
>
> I'm a newbie squeaker, and I've been digging into squeak for two weeks  
> now. I
> have to say, comming for other environments (Java, Perl, Python, etc..),  
> I
> really love how this language has twisted my thinking around and given  
> me new
> insight into programming in general. The little bit of tinkering and  
> research
> that I've done has really expanded my thinking, and things that other  
> languages
> (Java and Python) have inherited from Smalltalk just make sense now =).
>
> However, I have to argue the commonly held belief that Smalltalk is easy  
> to
> learn. While it's true that I learned the general syntax in a day or two  
> easily,
> being able to produce useful code still escapes me. I feel that learning
> Smalltalk is actually pretty difficult since you must also learn the  
> class lib
> to be able to do anything in the language. I don't feel that you can  
> seperate
> the syntax from the class lib while learning the language. Throw the  
> enviornment
> on top of all that and it becomes pretty confusing to newbies. The  
> barrier to
> entry is pretty high at this point.

This is an interesting point indeed and one which always makes me curious.  
Have (Java and Phyton) people learned the Java class library and the  
Python class library in a couple of hours or by self studing? Please do  
not take my question personally, I just want to ask that to a *real*  
person who has actually *made* this experience (of trying to learn  
Smalltalk after Java and Python) and not somebody who has read about such  
difficulty. So, if that is a question for you then please, tell us how  
you've learned Java and Python.

Thank you very much in advance.

/Klaus