Beginners July 2016

beginners@lists.squeakfoundation.org

6 participants
6 discussions

New Introductory Tutorial
by EuanM 26 Aug '16

26 Aug '16

I've created Yet Another Smalltalk First Steps tutorial. This is intended as one of a series. It is designed to be cross-platform across Squeak 5 Pharo 4 Seaside 3.1 Cuis Dolphin 6 If you have experience running any of these systems on Windows, Linux or MacOS, please check to see if I have the instructions correct for your chosen pairing of Smalltalk and OS platform. (As you'll see when you look, I do not have detailed instructions for aspects of MacOS). The document is at: http://smalltalkinsmallsteps.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/get-smalltalk-up-and-ru… (It's intended to move to a different blog after this review process). I feel the need to do this as cross-Smalltalks tutorial because of findings and 4 charts I've placed at: http://smalltalkinsmallsteps.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/mindshare-of-smalltalk-… Essentially, Smalltalk mindshare and use is incredibly tiny, compared to other languages in the same space. (We all know this, but seeing it represented graphically has a more visceral effect, IMO) Aggregating interest in all the Smalltalks still does not bring more than a tiny proportion of the interest in, and use of, Ruby. In turn, Ruby is (quite understandably) small in comparison to JavaScript. Comparing interest in any specific Smalltalk is, predictably, smaller than the aggregate interest in Smalltalk. Our community seems determined to split itself into smaller and smaller sub-communities. I think we do ourselves a disservice this way. My initial contribution will be to try to provide some explicitly pan-Smalltalk beginners' tutorials, like this one. Cheers, and happy Smalltalking, EuanM

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indexing into a collection
by Joseph Alotta 27 Jul '16

27 Jul '16

Greetings, I have a OrderedCollection of DrivingDays. an OrderedCollection(2016-01-02| quigley s| nil|18§ 2016-01-03| marianos fresh| nil|5§ 2016-01-04| fresh thyme| nil|5§ 2016-01-05| panda express| nil|3§ 2016-01-06| peets| nil|7§ 2016-01-07| starbucks| nil|3§) I want to select aDrivingDay object from the list by date, update it by adding mileage and places visited and put it back into the list. If I #select the OrderedCollection, I get a copy of the item, not the same one in the OrderedCollection. How do I select an item in the list for update? Sincerely, Joe.

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Transcript
by Joseph Alotta 18 Jul '16

18 Jul '16

Why is it slow to write on the Transcript. I thought with a powerful computer like this, it would be fast. Is it really doing that much or is there something in the code sleeping to a clock? Sincerely, Joe.

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evaluating strings as blocks
by Joseph Alotta 11 Jul '16

11 Jul '16

Greetings, For debuting purposes, I want to build a string with calculations and then evaluate it. Something like: string := ‘2 + 2 - 5’; and then do: string asBlock value => -1 How can I get this to work? Sincerely, Joe.

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sorting by key1 inside of key2
by Joseph Alotta 07 Jul '16

07 Jul '16

Greetings, I have a collection of Transaction objects. They have instance variables of category and payee. A category might be “Office Expense” and a payee might be “Costco” or “Amazon”. I want to sort by categories and then payees. Office Expense, Amazon….. ….. …. …. Office Expense, Costco …. … … Here is some of my code: sorted := trans asSortedCollection: [:a :b | (a category) < (b category)]. sorted do: [ :tr | | cat pay | cat := tr category. pay := tr payee. stream nextPutAll: (tr myPrintFormat2). How do I make the sort block sort on both keys? Sincerely, Joe.

2 2

'($1,925.46)' asNumber
by Joseph Alotta 01 Jul '16

01 Jul '16

Greetings, I want to convert a String with parenthesis and dollar sign to a Number or Float. '($1,925.46)’ asNumber Is there something out of the box that does this, or do I have to write it myself, character by character? Should I use a ReadStream? Sincerely, Joe.

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Beginners July 2016