Beginner's Smalltalk - wasn't that (kind of) what LearningWorks was/is(?)
all about?

<rant>
The "problem" here isn't with beginners.  According to recent reports here,
beginners pick up on the syntax of Smalltalk and the concepts of object
oriented development faster/better than do more experienced programmers.  So
it seems to me that the problem is with the more experienced developers who
already have opinions about what a language should look like.  Of course,
this is going to vary based on what any given "experienced" developer has
seen.  COBOL developers are going to hate Smalltalk because it doesn't have
ENVIRONMENT, DATA, and PROCEDURE divisions, and uses mixedCaseIdentifiers
when every right-thinking person in their world *knows* that UPPER-CASE
DASH-SEPARATED IDENTIFIERS ARE BEST.  C and C++ programmers are going to
hate the lack of braces, because they all *know* that square-braces are used
for array access, and that's the best of all possible uses.  Heaven only
knows what the Pascal, Eiffel, Oberon, Ada, PL/I, Haskell, Clean, and
what-have-you programmers are going to hate the most (lack of pre- and
post-conditions (Eiffel)?  Lack of typing (Haskell, Clean)?  Lack of
pointless excess verbosity (Ada)?  Not designed by Niklaus Wirth (Pascal,
Oberon :-))?  I don't think that beginners need things changed because
they're going to learn what's there and will think Smalltalk, as it is, is
How Things Should Be.  And I don't think experienced developers should be
pandered to.  A little mental stretching is good for the brain.  Harrrumph!
</rant>

Bob Jarvis
Compuware @ Timken

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Mike Thomas [SMTP:miketh at ptmnet.com]
> Sent:	Wednesday, February 16, 2000 7:56 PM
> To:	squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
> Subject:	Re: How about Smalltalk-2000?
> 
> The discussion about adding a beginners language to Squeak reminds me of
> Logic Programming Associates' MicroProlog, which had a beginners syntax
> called "Simple".
> 
> I never wanted to use Simple because I perceived it as being in some way
> limited and that therefore I would be short-changing myself in the longer
> term.
> 
> I think this idea might also complicate the system from a beginners point
> of
> view unless the more complex parent language is completely hidden, in
> which
> case you might as well not bother calling Squeak Smalltalk.
> 
> Perhaps the beginners language should be regarded as an educational
> application, rather than an extension of Squeak, a variant of Smalltalk.
>