[Squeakfoundation]Brainstormin'

[Mark Guzdial]

Dr. Maartensz, I agree deeply with your argument for integrating 
Squeak into Universities.  That's why I'm doing the things I'm doing, 
such as the books and the workshop.

It's not just Georgia Tech using Squeak in real classes.  Visit 
http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mmworkshop -- Bucknell and U. 
California-Santa Barbara are using it, as are Portland State, UC-San 
Diego, and Pepperdine.  You're right that it would be great to get 
into some top tier schools, but that takes time.  You're a student of 
history, sir -- you know that "revolutions" are not the 
all-of-a-sudden thing that they're often portrayed as.  Instead, 
there's typically a long, slow, quiet burn before a sudden awareness 
by the populace. I like that Squeak has a growing, intense community. 
When Squeak "suddenly" appears at top-name universities, it will 
appear as a revolution to many.

I disagree, though, with your argument for documentation.  Yes, of 
course, more and better documentation would be great, but that's not 
what's holding Squeak back.  Squeak 2.7 and 2.8 were and are terrific 
releases -- many people are using them happily (e.g., some of my grad 
students are quite happy with those and won't upgrade yet).  The old 
documentation and the "old" books still work quite well for those.  I 
found your reference to trying to tide over "genuine academics 
through the current Post-Modern Dark Age" intriguing, but if you 
believe that, is only Squeak 3.2 good enough to tide over genuine 
academics?  People on the main list sometimes joke that there's 
nothing new since Smalltalk-72, but there's a certain truth to that. 
The old isn't bad just because the new is better.

The latest-and-greatest truly is great, but it's a constantly moving 
target.  Technology will only help with getting documentation 
available to a small extent -- good documentation is HARD to do. 
Documentation will ALWAYS be behind, sir, but I don't believe that 
it's a dire situation.  There are LOTS of features in 2.8 through 3.2 
that I don't know how to use.  That's okay -- Squeak is still a 
wonderful tool to think and learn with.  What I know about Squeak 
transfers forward and helps me to learn new things.  I spend a lot of 
time in my first week of classes on how to find things (via the 
Method Finder and Explorers, etc.)  What Squeak lacks for in 
documentation, it makes up for in tools for self-discovery.

Squeak's growing -- maybe not as fast as one might like, but 
revolutions do take time.  "Lack of documentation" should not be used 
as an excuse -- go ahead and write the next set of documentation that 
you see that will be useful, get Squeak in your own universities, and 
gather people face-to-face as you describe.  I'm not a hacker with 16 
hours a day to explore Squeak, sir -- I'm an over-worked associate 
professor teaching 150+ students a semester with three kids under 10. 
It is possible to do great things with Squeak -- now, as it is today.

Mark

-- 
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Mark Guzdial : Georgia Tech : College of Computing : Atlanta, GA 30332-0280
Associate Professor - Learning Sciences & Technologies.
Collaborative Software Lab - http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/csl/
(404) 894-5618 : Fax (404) 894-0673 : guzdial@cc.gatech.edu
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Faculty/Mark.Guzdial.html