Stephane Ducasse:

> We are in the process to see how our french book on Squeak could be
> translated into english.
> 
> I can tell you that we payed an extreme attention to present Squeak well and
> this is better than this open book.
> Ask the french speaking people in the list about that ;)
> 
> For those that are interested there are pdf in french available at
> www.eyrolles.com

Some comments from Normandy (France).

1. Perhaps it would be nice to inform WHERE are those pdfs. Of course, this is
   just the Authors' modesty to hide this information, anyway, you can search
   yourself
   http://www.eyrolles.com/php.informatique/Ouvrages/9782212110234.php3

2. There are chapters 2, 3, 7 and 11.
   I had a look on chapter 2.
   I am NOT extremely fascinated. Why, for goodness sake, when offering a PDF
   version to the potential readers the colours have been squashed into grey
   levels? This is much less pleasant to read.

3. More about this chapter. It is called "Guided visit of some applications",
   and there are plenty of window captures included. The "Squeak worlds", some
   "funny/sad faces", some applications/browsers, etc. The text therein is
   readable when the pdf page is zoomed, but I doubt a little that in the
   printed version the reader manages to read those pages overloaded with
   small font text. (But the Authors tested this, didn't they...?)
   

   I understand that this chapter is mainly an advertisement: "look what cool
   applications have been written in squeak", but I must say that it is a pity
   that the Authors just copied nice pictures produced by somebody else, not
   wishing to work themselves on the visual layer of the presentation.

4. The same in chapter 3. Just snapshots of browsers, etc. The only
"non-standard"
   picture is a - rather schizoid, let's admit it - picture of rotated system
   browser.

5. Chapter 11. The chapter begins with a copy of the tutorial "Fun with the 
   Morphic Graphics System" by John Maloney. Was it really necessary to start 
   with something written by somebody else?
   And then we see what? Alignment Morphs. First example, with four circles:

    AlignmentMorph newRow 
     addMorph: (EllipseMorph new extent: 40 at 40; color: Color red); 
     addMorph: (EllipseMorph new extent: 50 at 50; color: Color yellow); 
     addMorph: (EllipseMorph new extent: 60 at 60; color: Color green); 
     addMorph: (EllipseMorph new extent: 70 at 70; color: Color blue); 
     position: 20 at 20; 
     openInWorld
   
   And what we read on the page: http://swikimirror.squeakspace.com/721.html
   (Hannes Hirzel, Sept. 1999) :

     AlignmentMorph newRow 
      addMorph: (EllipseMorph new extent: 40 at 40; color: Color red);
      addMorph: (EllipseMorph new extent: 50 at 50; color: Color yellow);
      addMorph: (EllipseMorph new extent: 60 at 60; color: Color green);
      addMorph: (EllipseMorph new extent: 70 at 70; color: Color blue);
      position: 20 at 20;
      openInWorld

   The Authors didn't even change the colours or the position.

MoviePlayerMorph example:

| ps zps f32 out ff | 
out := FileStream newFileNamed: 'luxo2.movie'. 
out binary.
...

Here you are, find it on swiki 978.
(The shown Luxo frames used to be distributed here: 
   http://software.freepage.de/cronos/download/HowSqMovie.zip ,
   but today I didn't find them )

==========================
I skip the rest... 

I think sincerely that such a book is badly needed, and it will surely be
useful. Stéphane Ducasse and Xavier Briffault filled-up an "ecological niche",
especially useful for French students who obviously prefer to avoid reading
books in English if French is available.

I believe that Authors payed an extreme attention to present Squeak well,
although I am not sure how can they demonstrate that their book is better
than something else. Frankly, I don't like when an author says such thing,
it is up to his readers to praise him, you know what I mean! (Especially
comparing the OpenBook initiative, with a printed book for 28.50 Euro...)


But I am a little disapointed by the amount of information copied from
other sources. I didn't see the entire book, and at least I hope that those
sources are duly acknowledged. Potential translators into English might
otherwise put themselves in a somehow delicate situation...



Jerzy Karczmarczuk
Caen, France