On Thu, Feb 10, 2000 at 10:14:47AM +0100, Giovanni Giorgi wrote:
> Excuse me,
>     I'd like to have your opinion about a my small idea...
> I think a book for learning Smalltalk from a C-language background would
> help a lot the diffusion of
> smalltalk way-of-thinking.

In my opinion, this is a very good idea. I have a C (etc) background,
and I found it very difficult to learn Smalltalk. I kept getting frustrated
by simple things, and I would give up and set Smalltalk aside. In the
end, it was many years before I got over the initial frustrations and
really started to learn. I am not trying to brag about how stupid I am,
just to say that I think that many people with backgrounds in C get
frustrated with their first exposure to Smalltalk, and most probably
give up forever.

C programmers expect to be able to write a "Hello World" right away,
and to be able to do simple things like read and write files. It is
completely pointless to try to convince someone that Smalltalk is
wonderful when they can't even figure out how to do a "Hello world."
They just end up feeling stupid and frustrated.

So I think that a short book, possibly organized similarly to the
original K&R C book, would be a wonderful thing. It should not
talk down to the reader or try to convice how easy it is to learn
Smalltalk, just tell her or him directly how to do things. It is
really enfuriating to learn from a book that seems to suggest that
any half-witted child could figure this stuff out in a day or two.
Therefore, the tone should be direct and to the point, and should
show how to do familiar things in the strange Smalltalk environment.

Dave