Blake-

On Feb 8, 2007, at 11:49 PM, Blake wrote:

> Anyone seen the BlueJ development environment?
>
> It's meant as an aid to teach Java.
>
> I think it's interesting that it works by allowing you to create a  
> live environment of Java objects. A pallid imitation of Smalltalk.  
> (But still kinda cool.)

I've played with BlueJ some myself.  I was playing with it because I  
specifically was looking for a way to get some Smalltalkishness for  
Java, specifically some interactivity.            xxxxxxxx

That was back in 2000, when I was taking a Java class that was mostly  
about writing GUIs in Swing for my sophomore year of college. I had  
been using Squeak for about a year, having taught myself Smalltalk  
over the previous year.  Like most who take an earnest look at  
Smalltalk, I was hooked, and Smalltalk had replaced Python as my  
favorite language, where it's remained since. No small feat for a  
language enthusiast during a time where there are a lot of  
contenders, some of which that are full featured and fun to code in,  
languages like Io, Factor, Ruby, Python, etc.

Anyway, I was trying to find something to give me some of what  
Smalltalk does for Java and ended up playing with BlueJ.  It is  
indeed a learning tool, and past that it is of a very limited  
usefulness. Now that I get paid to code in Java (and Python, but I'm  
hoping to move that part to Squeak soon), I've not found a use for  
BlueJ, and I get similar benefit from tools like Jython, which can  
access any and all Java objects, including subclassing Java classes  
as well as BeanShell.  Naturally, it'd be nice to get some GUI  
inspectors and a class browser, but at least being able to send  
messages and play around with the retuned values.

For those interested in tools like eToys, you might be interested in  
Greenfoot (screenshots: http://www.greenfoot.org/about/ 
screenshots.html ), which is sort of a cross between BlueJ and a  
wanna-be eToys.


Regards,
Aaron