beginner problems, was Re: Smalltalk book for beginners?

John-Reed Maffeo rlpa80 at email.sps.mot.com
Tue Jan 20 15:32:59 UTC 1998


One of the problems that I have had with most of the books I have used is the
lack of specific relevance to Squeak. I have been very frustrated at times,
because the examples in the books are not useable in Squeak because of the differences
in classes and selectors.

As a beginner Squeak programmer (with 20 years in various procedural languages),
what I want more than anything are good examples that I can modify. I have been
working through a number of different programs from the Smalltalk Archive. I
keep running into code that does not translate into Squeak and that I don't
understand.

The first program I got to run was Wires. I had to use some different
selectors to
make it work. Next I got a version of Hanoi to run, but I had to redesign its structure
(which I was able to do because I got Wires to run). I am trying to get USA
to work but I don't have a clue how its windows are supposed to look and feel.

I filed in the STP goodies from the Squeak site and they expect selectors that are
not in the base Squeak system :( I wrote new selectors in the base system and some
of the STP code works now, but some of the base system features are now broken -
go figure.

Maybe Squeak is not ready for beginner programmers who don't have a friendly guru
around to help them over the rough spots?


Rodentialy Yours,

John-Reed Maffeo





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