GORAN ET AL.:

> this list is one of the friendliest lists that... Well, friendliest
> period. :-) Newbies are very welcome, and if you read the archives 
etc

I AGREE.

> you can see that newbie questions are almost always answered 
abundantly.

DEFINITELY.

> And hopefully newbies feel that the community is in fact trying 
hard to
> hold hands.

VERY MUCH.
 
> One "issue" with Squeak is that Squeak is a Smalltalk. In fact, it 
is a

HMMM,IT IS A SMALLTALK. NOW WE BEGIN TO SEE A PROBLEM...
FOR THE NOVICE, SMALLTALKS MAY BE OVERWHELMING GIVEN THE NUMBER OF 
BUILT IN CLASSES. :-(

BUT OF COURSE IF ONE CAN LEARN THE CLASSES INCREMENTALLY WHILE DOING 
EVER MORE USEFUL THINGS... :-)

MUCH OF WHAT I SEE AT THE SQUEAK INTERNET SITES IS INTERFACE(plugins, 
widgets, morphs) OR MULTIMEDIA RELATED. JUST THE REASON I DON'T LIKE 
WINDOWS---WIDGETITIS COMPOUNDED WITH GADGETITIS. 

I FIND LEARNING SQUEAK SLOW GOING. WRITING SNIPPETS OF CODE IS NOT A 
BIG DEAL. IT'S EVEN FUN AS ADVERTISED.
SO WHAT COULD BE MY PROBLEM? IT IS THE OBJECTNESS ...YES. BUT NOT 
WHAT YOU MAY THINK. ITS EASY TO THINK IN TERMS OF OBJECTS. THE 
RIGIDITY AND SIZE OF THE CLASS STRUCTURE IS DEFINITE AN IMPEDIMENT TO 
LEARNING SMALLTALK. SMALLTALK IS ALMOST CRYSTALLINE AND IT IS ALREADY 
SO BIG. I ENVISION MYSELF FALLING INTO A WOODY ALLEN-ESQUE NEUROTIC 
PARALYSIS, UNABLE TO ACT ON ANY MATTER AS I WORRY OVER WHERE TO PUT 
ANY CLASSES I MIGHT DEVELOP! 

> direct descendant of Smalltalk-80. This means that all the stuff out
> there covering Smalltalk more or less applies to Squeak too. This is
> similar to say Lisp. There is no One Single Place for learning Lisp
> either. Because there are numerous Lisp implementations and 
communities.
> So it may seem as confusing as Squeak I think.

NO, NO, NO!!! THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE. I WAS PRODUCTIVE WITH THE 
SPARSELY DOCUMENTED XLISP 1.7 ALMOST FROM THE BEGINNING. THE APP.--A 
COMPLETELY GENERAL DECISION ANALYSIS ENVIRONMENT--WAS VERY OBJECT 
ORIENTED AND IRONICALLY THAT VERSION OF XLISP's MESSAGE SYNTAX WAS 
CRAFTED TO RESEMBLE SMALLTALK'S. 

SO HOW IS LEARNING LISP DIFFERENT THAN SMALLTALK? FIRST, THERE ARE 
MORE BOOKS ON LISP THAN SMALLTALK. THAT IS A BIG HELP IN THAT ONE CAN 
KEEP LOOKING UNTIL FINDING ONE THAT WORKS. ALSO SOME LISP BOOKS ARE 
VERY, VERY GOOD. ARE THERE ANY SMALLTALK EQUIVALENTS TO WINSTON AND 
HORN? ANDERSON? TOURETZKY? GABRIEL? ...YOU GET THE PICTURE. BTW I 
THINK THE QUALITY OF LISP BOOKS MAY BE IN PART A RESULT OF THE 
QUALITY OF THE LANGUAGE ITSELF. THE PRACTICAL "CORE" OF ALL LISPS ARE 
SMALL. THE LANGUAGE IS EXCEEDINGLY EXPRESSIVE, AND EXTENSIBLE. IN A 
NUTSHELL YOU CAN GRASP AND USE ANY DIALECT OF LISP IN A HURRY--
INSTANT GRATIFICATION FOR MODERN MAN AND/OR WOMAN.

CONSIDER WINSTON'S 'ON TO SMALLTALK'. A PRESCRIPTIVE BOOK, GOOD FOR 
MANY BUT NOT ALL, WINSTON IS WED TO 'STE'. BUT WHAT IF IT WERE 
UPDATED USING SQUEAK? GUZDIAL'S BOOKS CERTAINLY CAN HELP ONE PUT 
ONE'S ARMS AROUND THE WHOLE OF SQUEAK AT SOME MOMENT FROZEN IN TIME, 
BUT MUCH OF THE EFFORT SEEMS TO BE EXPENDED ON THE INTERFACE AND ALL 
THE DIFFERENT GOODIES. KAEHLER'S DOLPHIN BOOK IS DEFINITELY A 'HOW-
TO' BOOK BUT NOW WE HAVE THE DOLPHIN INTERFACE. AND SO ON. MY POINT 
IS THAT SIGNIFICANT TIME MUST BE INVESTED ON ENVIRONMENT SPECIFIC 
FEATURES WHEN LEARNING ANY SMALLTALK IMPLEMENTATION. 

FOR SOME PEOPLE PERHAPS TOO MUCH TIME IS SPENT LEARNING THE 
ENVIRONMENT AS OPPOSED TO DOING SOMETHING 'PRODUCTIVE'. (THIS SOUNDS 
VAGUELY REMINISCENT OF EARLIER MOANING ABOUT DEVELOPING WINDOWS APPS 
IN C. THE WINDOWS API DOES A LOT, BUT EXPECTS A LOT FROM THE 
PROGRAMMER IN RETURN.) 

I ALSO FOUND LEARNING R TO BE MUCH MORE EASY THAN SQUEAK.

> 
> Finally - personally I would recommend one of the free books as a
> starter. These are professionally written books available as PDFs 
that
> cover Smalltalk in full detail. There can hardly be a better way to
> start with Smalltalk/Squeak IMHO. Here is the url again:
> 
> http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~ducasse/WebPages/FreeBooks.html
> 
> And frankly - how many other programming languages out there have 
such a
> wealth of *free good books* available as pdfs?

PROBABLY NONE, BUT IF ONE CHANGES 'BOOKS' TO 'LEARNING MATERIAL AND 
RESOURCES', I COUNTER WITH: COMPARE THE R PROJECT WITH SQUEAK AND ITS 
SWIKIS. AND WHAT ABOUT PYTHON.ORG? 

FINALLY,WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE, I BELIEVE THAT THE SQUEAK 
COMMUNITY IS A RAUCOUS COMMUNITY BECAUSE IT WANTS TO BE AND THAT TO 
ME IS PART OF ITS CHARM. EXPLORING THE CUTTING EDGE REQUIRES THE 
FREEDOM TO EXPLORE--THE REST OF US WILL JUST HAVE TO ACCOMMODATE THAT 
OR FIND AN VEHICLE. MOREOVER IT WOULD BE ENJOYABLE TO CONTRIBUTE SOME 
DAY. I'LL WORK ON THAT.

BEST REGARDS
Michael W. Grant