[REPORT]Guides monthly community report (was Re: I want to document but I need to learn first!)

Richard A. O'Keefe ok at cs.otago.ac.nz
Tue Mar 11 22:09:18 UTC 2003


goran.hultgren at bluefish.se wrote:
	eToys probably works pretty fine **with proper guidance**.
	Just a hunch.
	
Yes, but that's precisely the point.
BECOMING A PERSON WHO CAN PROVIDE PROPER GUIDANCE IS HARD.
And it isn't just eToys.

For example, I still do not feel competent to instruct my students in
how to use Morphic effectively, and that is _despite_ reading all the
Squeak books and all the Morphic tutorials I have come across.  Leave
to one side the fact that the books and tutorials get seriously out of
date fairly fast, they tend to spend a long time on fairly basic things
and then stop in mid air.  It really _isn't_ true that you can learn
about Squeak from the code, not the Morphic code anyway, and heaven
knows I've squandered enough paper trying.

	One very good example of "people standing up" is the documentation
	project steaming ahead by first cleaning up the Squeak Swiki - a juicy
	job, but I think they are doing fine. I just hope they will have some
	energy left in the end to try to keep it in the good shape they are
	bringing it to. :-) And btw, this project does generate quite a lot of
	traffic on the list - for very good reasons.
	
The documentation project is **THE** most encouraging thing I've seen in
the Squeak world for as long as I've been in it.  There is a special
corner of heaven reserved for those people.  And if the Morphic cleanup
project people make good notes as they go along, the documentation project
people will have company there.

I don't know what happened, but it seems that suddenly things I've hoped
for for a long time, that have been much talked about but little seen,
have started happening.  This is a good time to be Squeaking.



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