Hi

I'm lisper and schemer too. So you do not have to learn postscript, 
semaphore, compiler to program in Squeak.
I suggest you to read the Book Smalltalk by Example available on my web 
page.

http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~ducasse/WebPages/FreeBooks.html

You only have to learn what you need and learn the rest incrementally.

Stef

PS: I suggest you not to type in uppercase letter you emails because 
this makes them difficult to read.






On Mardi, sep 9, 2003, at 07:45 Europe/Zurich, mwgrant2001 wrote:

> 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
>
>