On Wed, 7 Jun 2000, Mats Nygren wrote:

[snip]
> I beleive that several of the most knowledgable people on Smalltalk have
> used it for such a long time that they have difficulties understanding
> what problems beginners have.

On little or no evidence. I've heard this put forth as a general rule, and
I've heard this put forth as a conclusion based on objections to
"marketing" or "newbifiction" proposals.

For the general rule: It's my experience, as an instructor at many
different levels, that beginners are often quite horrible at knowing what
would make their learning better, or easier. So, piffle to that. (I trust
the rest of the reasoning is obvious.)

For the specific cases, well, I won't address each one, but when *I*
object, it's often on the basis of what I went through to *become* a
non-beginner. And from observing and mentoring other beginners. I'll add
gratuitous initial difficulty is usually bad, but gratuitous initial
simplicticness is also usually bad. So, piffle again!

Personally, I like things that repay repeated study with new subtlies or
even new blaringly obvious, in hindsight, revelations.

Also, I think a lot of people are confusing "inital learning" easy with
"casual use" ease. These are typically very different.

> Beginners however understands these
> difficulties quite well and can some time later make substantial
> contributions to this if they make notes and collects that to texts.

Well, some can. If you've every paired students and groups together you'll
know that it's as easy to drag other beginners down as boost them up. What
*does* typically do good is when a gifted *teacher* learns something new
and keeps notes, etc.

Ok, that's my curmudgenly bit.

My positive bit is that I think it would be really slick and helpful
(ha!) to have something like the old Apple "guided tour", that taught you
how to click, how to click 'n drag, etc.

We have SqueakMouseRecorder (or whatever it's called), so this is
eminantly doable. I'll give it a whack if no one beats me to it, in my
copious spare time inwhich I'm not writing massive missives which fall
still born from the mailer :) (Philosophy humor, folks.)

Personally, I think that helping newbies individually is probably more
helpful, but <shrug/>.

Cheers,
Bijan Parsia.