Alan....

I _eagerly_ volunteer to do documentation for this undertaking.

--- Alan Kay <Alan.Kay at disney.com> wrote:
> Dan --
> 
> That just happens to be what we've been working on the last several 
> years. From the beginning we envisioned three "views" of the system. 
> We now call them "etoys", "omniuser", and "expert". The "omniuser" 
> view is the "superhypercard view". Both the etoys view and the 
> omniuser view have special attention to syntax and the amount of the 
> system that is seen by the user. The omniuser view has taken a long 
> time because of the amount of functionality needed (it runs from 
> hypercard like things to multimedia scripting like things), and 
> (more) because of the difficulty of documentation and support. 
> However, things are coming along for a trial release in the next few 
> months and you might like to volunteer to do documentation for it 
> ....(?)
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Alan
> 
> ------
> 
> 
> 
> At 12:20 AM -0800 3/22/01, Dan Shafer wrote:
> >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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> 


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