Well, that last message didn't go so well =). Looks like my webmail client 

creates the text as an html attachment (blech.. I didn't know they did 
this).
Let's try this again....

I'm new to Squeak (only been playing around with it for 2 weeks), and I 
wanted to join in on the community fun. I once read that learning 
Smalltalk
would change my thinking about computers, so a couple of weeks ago
I decided to see if that was true. Now I'm just amazed at how much my
thinking has changed, and how many things about programming just suddenly
make sense . I'm really drawn to Squeak, over other implementations, for 
some 
reason that I can't quite put my finger on. I think it just feels fun to 
me.

However, as a new user I'm really struggling to get a grip on actually 
using 
the language for something semi-productive. I'm a DBA and Network Engineer
by trade, but since age 12 I've loved programming. The freedom of creative
expression in code and the immediate response from the computer has always
connected with something in me. So for the past 22 years I've learned as 
many
languages as I could, but I'm shocked that it took me so long to get to 
Smalltalk.
Also (insert ego here =) I'm shocked that I'm having such a hard time with 
it.

One thing that I keep seeing around the net (and on comp.lang.smalltalk) 
is
that Squeak is too hard to learn because of the documentation. From my 
friendly prespective there's some truth to that, and the bulk of the books 
and
articles on Squeak that I've read are a bit dated (back to 2000 or 
earlier). It 
seems that the docs are getting crusty and need of a renewal.

So, to that end, I'd like to volunteer to organize the docs and write some 
new
tutorials for Squeak. I've registered the domain squeak-mentors.org, and 
I'll
be pulling together all the links that I've found for web tutorials to 
start with.
After that I'll start working on some mid-level tutorials (which don't 
seem to 
exist) and class documentation (with examples) to help ease the learning 
curve
for others. That's my plan at this point, but I wanted to notify the 
community
so I'm not operating in a vaccum (and possibly doing something that 
doesn't
make sense). I'm open to all thoughts, ideas and advice on this project.

I'd also like to fix the ocr errors in the book, "Art and Science of 
Smalltalk", 
since it's a great introduction (I ordered my own copy) to the language, 
but
with the errors it's a bit annoying to read online. 

And, I guess, that's my introduction =). Thoughts and ideas welcome.

Sincerely,

Jason Burke
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