The SqueakC project to make Squeak more accessible to first-time users
(described at http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/1210) is of great interest to
me.

I notice in reviewing the four primary aspects of the project, syntax
simplification and object management streamlining are high on the list. I'd
like to propose that it may not be entirely necessary to tinker with the syntax
of Smalltalk and that the new browser/inspector/editor tool done well could add
the appropriate tool layer to make this work. However, I think there is one
other issue that needs to be considered.

Perhaps the largest obstacle to most people understanding and using an
environment like Squeak is the sheer immensity of the image and its contents.
It occurs to me that if we created projects which were in effect sub-sets of
the Squeak environment, surfacing only as much of the class library and tool
set as necessary to create a specific type or category of application, we could
go a long way toward the kind of user-friendly layering exhibited in HyperCard.

For example (and I am only discussing this theoretically here; I haven't delved
into any of these in detail), if a non-programming user came to Squeak to
create a slide presentation, we could give him a project in which all the tools
were only aware of BookMorphs and other such items that would be particularly
useful to accomplishing that goal. (Perhaps StackMorphs would be a better
baseline approach to this and other app types.) If the user runs into a wall,
he has the entire Squeak environment (or perhaps another, larger subset)
available, but only on demand as needed.

Combining this approach with EToys scripting tools and techniques could go a
long way toward creating a general-purpose environment in which users could get
comfortable with a subset at a time.

(In fact, I think ParcPlace did just this for Smalltalk-80 beginners back in
the early days. I attended a class taught by Stephen T. Pope, Adele Goldberg,
and Dave Wilson, which actually had us working in a strictly walled-off subset
of the environment.)

Thoughts?

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