Hi Lily and all!

Quoting Lily Smith <yinyuqin2000 at yahoo.com>:
> I am new to SmallTalk. I have to learn it because I have to take a 
> class on
> SmallTalk.

First, more seasoned "Smalltalkers" would write "Smalltalk" (without the capital
T). As a newbie you are forgiven! ;-) :-)
 
> The major reason that why SmallTalk is way less popular as Microsoft VB
> 
> is
> that SmallTalk lacks documentatation and a good tutorial. I know 

Well, actually it is much more complex than that. Smalltalk is MUCH older than
VB - in fact, Smalltalk is older than Microsoft. Lack of documentation etc is
not the reason why Smalltalk did not become as popular as VB is today.

And do note that you are talking about Squeak (I guess) in particular. Squeak
does indeed suffer from a lack of documentation in some respects - or if it
exists it is quite wildly dispersed over the Internet, in fact if you look more
closely there is more out there than you would guess.

Smalltalk in general though is another matter. VisualWorks, VisualAge, Dolphin
Smalltalk (just to mention a few of the most popular implementations of the
Smalltalk language and environment) are commercial products and have quite
extensive and good documentation.

> SmallTalk
> can do almost everything that VB can, but a newbie like me just don't 
> know
> how to do it. It is not easy to find the correct class and method. Even

True. The trick is (mostly) to learn "how to find it". If you can formulate some
concrete simple questions, ask them on this list and you will probably get a few
answers showing you how to find out.

> if
> I am lucky enough to find it, I have to spend hours to learn how to use
> those methods. Few documentation and examples on the web are available.

More than you might think actually. But I do agree that they can be hard to
find. As an example, some of the more ambitious not so easily found tutorials
was on the SqueakNews CDs, I am not sure, but perhaps the first issues are still
downloadable at www.squeaknews.com.

> After several setbacks like this, people will probably give up and 
> forget
> SmallTalk.

:-) We "Squeak die-hards" are aware of this and we are trying to make it better
but this is OpenSource - we all do it in our spare time...

But I can assure you that if you "get into Squeak/Smalltalk" you will not give
it up and forget about it. It's like a drug. Personally I have more than 20
programming languages under my belt and when I found Smalltalk (in 1993) it was
like finally coming home.

> One of my assignments was to add a radio button group and then deal 
> with
> the user input. Even my teacher does not know how to implement a radio

Ouch, this is hard stuff in Squeak. Squeak is an experimental, multimedia
playground - not (currently) an easy tool to build simple data entry apps.

Doing it in for example Dolphin Smalltalk would be as easy or easier than VB.
You know - drag and drop. Done. :-)

> button group. He spent half an hour in class, trying to show us how to 
> add
> a radio button group. He failed. Then he wanted us to complete that
> assignment ourselves. God! It is even difficult for a SmallTalk senior 
> to
> find out something common! How can SmallTalk be popular? Look at how 
> easy
> it is to add a radio button group in Microsoft VB!

Again, the reason it is not "easy" in Squeak is that we have been busy doing
other things in Squeak. Just a few of us has been experimenting with "simple
UIs" and that stuff is not in the regular Squeak image.

A different assignment more in line with Squeak would actually be to IMPLEMENT a
radio button. From scratch that is. Probably very hard to do with VB but quite
simple with Squeak!

> Well, it is just my complaint on this language. I hope SmallTalk geeks
> should come up with a very good tutorial book for SmallTalk newbies.

There are actually a few books for Squeak. And Smalltalk in general too.

> Otherwise, it will never be popular.

Squeak is OpenSource. It will always be exactly what we make it together.
Nothing more nor less. So by definition, "we like it"! :-)

Again - don't compare Squeak with VB. It's like comparing apples with oranges.
If you would like to see how Smalltalk can be "VB like" then look at Dolphin
Smalltalk.

Anyway, I hope you keep trying and don't be afraid to ask questions to the list
(prefix the subject with [Q] so that we know it is a question).

regards, Göran


PS. Squeak is growing in popularity within the Smalltalk community since it is
THE OpenSource Smalltalk today. Smalltalk in large is harder to tell - is it
growing or shrinking? I don't know. DS


Göran Hultgren, goran.hultgren at bluefish.se
GSM: +46 70 3933950, http://www.bluefish.se
\"Department of Redundancy department.\" -- ThinkGeek