Surely, her teacher did mean for the class to implement a radio 
button from scratch.

Cheers,

Alan

-------

At 12:22 AM +0200 7/26/02, Göran Hultgren wrote:
>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


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