[ANN] Squeak Documentation Project

Eric Winger eric at thewingers.net
Mon Sep 25 23:01:45 UTC 2006


On Sep 25, 2006, at 5:09 AM, Lex Spoon wrote:

> Eric Winger <eric at thewingers.net> writes:
>> This is one of the problems with Smalltalk in general, as I see
>> it. There's a ton of documentation available on Smalltalk, not just
>> Squeak. But when you're starting out, you don't want all that. You
>> need a straight forward, single, starting point to get going.
>
> That's a strange comment.  Have you looked at the "getting started"
> area on the Squeak swiki?  It includes a number of tutorials, plus
> references to a number of books.  It includes much Squeak-specific
> material.
>
>     http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/377
>
> It includes tutorials, free books you can download, and pointers to
> books in print.

Your link exactly illustrates my point. You didn't send me to a link 
with a simple tutorial using Squeak 3.9.
You sent me to a page with lots of stuff, albeit very good stuff, but 
lots and lots of stuff, which may or
may not be out of date. For a person new to smalltalk and squeak that's 
too much.

That's why the documentation project discussion is a good idea. Written 
by newbies for newbies.
It would be really neat if it comes together well and the result will 
be a nice set of well-maintained tutorials that
a beginner can start with, then grow with as they gain experience.  
Further, the new user would open
squeak and be presented with links to these tutorials. Then, in his 
mind, there would be no question
as to where to start. and no question that he would be using a tutorial 
that wasn't out of date.

After a person has their feet wet and wants to explore further, then 
all that other documentation
is great.

my 2 cents,

Eric




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