[ANN] Squeak Documentation Team formation

Matthew Fulmer tapplek at gmail.com
Mon Sep 25 19:43:25 UTC 2006


On Mon, Sep 25, 2006 at 07:27:15PM +0000, J J wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> >From: Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de>
> >Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers 
> >list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
> >To: The general-purpose Squeak developers 
> >list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
> >Subject: Re: [ANN] Squeak Documentation Team formation
> >Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2006 22:49:14 +0200
> >
> >systems. The  question is if a tutorial could solve that or if there needs 
> >to be  system changes to make Squeak less strange for newcomers - or if we 
> >explain to everyone why this is not simple, and should not be.
> >
> >- Bert -
> 
> What do you mean "and should not be".  Of course it should be.  It should 
> be drop dead simple.  What possible argument is there for it being simple 
> in other languages yet hard in smalltalk?

I think you two are agreeing, and do not realize it. There are
three approaches to fixing a usability problem, in order of
decreasing usefulness:

1. fix it
2. teach everyone how to work around it
3. tell everyone that the problem only arises when you do
   something wrong. 

For this example, that would mean:

1. Make text processing easy
2. Teach everyone the hard way of text processing
3. Imply that squeak makes text files obsolete

I believe Bert is saying that 3 has been done enough that nobody
has really taken the problem seriously. It may not have been an
active decision, but a general ignorance of the problem.

The mere act of stating the problem makes it sound absurd, and I
believe that was Bert's intent.

-- 
Matthew Fulmer



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