On Sat, 20 Nov 1999, Tim Cuthbertson wrote:

> Thanks, Stefan. I love Smalltalk and Squeak, but for some reason I 
> learn better with thorough documentation than by "tinkering under the 
> hood". I am very happy for so many of those who can learn everything by 
> poking around inside Squeak, but I have just never made that leap, 
> myself.
[snip]

Just want to point out that it's a Squeakish (and Smalltalkish) philosophy
that there *is no hood* to tinker under. That's the "transparency" goal.
Naturally, it's not quite there yet ;)

I recommend learning the tools (browsers, inspectors, etc.) and the spirit
(good books include the purple book, *Best Practice Patterns*, etc.).
Naturally, a bit documentation here can help enormously ;)

But as Kent Beck likes to say, one learns more by "reading" the *image*.
Good smalltalking involves a high read/write ratio.

Note that this is *not* a rate against documentation, but really a pointer
to alternative documentation (the system itself). It *does* take a while
to become fluent. But I think it's a worthy goal to aim form.

Cheers,
Bijan Parsia.