Hi Edgar,

I don't think you understood my message (including the fact that it  
was a suggestion, not a request for help ;)) -- my point is that it  
would be interesting to try to capture what is so unique about  
working in a live environment like Smalltalk (or Self, etc. for that  
matter) and to provide this to newbies.. Once one becomes an  
experienced Smalltalker it becomes easy to take for granted the  
ability to so freely interact with your environment, so much so that  
we might even be tempted to think of "let Squeak teach you the "how  
to " things"" as being on par with choosing a small project and  
downloading the system :)

If a newbie's background with learning languages and development  
environments has been limited to books and stuff like javadocs, the  
fact that you can just grab live objects, interrogate them, change  
the data and the code, all as part of your regular work, is going to  
seem very strange.. If you can find a way to help them understand  
this, the details of the language, class libraries, etc. aren't going  
to phase them at all.

I think we run the risk of sounding cryptic/obnoxious to "outsiders"  
when we say "just learn from the system", without providing guidance  
on how they might actually do so.

Cheers, Andrew

On 16-Jan-06, at 1:31 AM, Lic. Edgar J. De Cleene wrote:

> Andrew Catton puso en su mail :
>
>> One nice thing for Smalltalk newbies would be to have a (short)
>> tutorial on "how to understand Squeak/Smalltalk without a
>> reference".. this would contain all the knowledge an experienced
>> Smalltalker uses to understand a new package: how to use senders-of,
>> implementors-of, the debugger, etc. to answer questions as they  
>> arise.
>>
>> Don't know if such a beast exists, but if it did it would be a nice
>> companion to the traditional (and correct) "the reference is the
>> system itself" response..
>>
>> Andrew
> And for this and original question, what experienced people do good  
> advices,
> here is mine/
>
> 1) Define a first project in what you wish start, not so big.
>
> 2) Download a "basic" Squeak , or if you wish try SqueakLight and  
> have full
> support in his beginners oriented community, SqueakRos (105 members  
> today)
>
> We start a "SummerTeam" experiment where students have the step by  
> step
> guide to complete , in each case, a game, how use Squeak for doing
> presentations/ tutorials/ end user material, or basic and not so basic
> server things
>
> 3) As was writed, you could read books, but nothing is like as let  
> Squeak
> teach you the "how to " things
>
> At you service
>
> Edgar, the Concierge/Door man/ Portero
>
>
>
> 	
>
> 	
> 		
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======================

Andrew Catton
Smallthought Systems Inc.
andrew at smallthought.com