Speaking of smalltalk

Post #8,044 by wharris2 9/9/01 6:43:54 AM Reply	Speaking of smalltalk Is there a good book that would help me wrap my mind around it? With all respect to smalltalk, everytime I see code, I get about two steps into it and then my mind turns into a pretzel. My first language was Fortran. My first language at work was C. I've done some Turbo Pascal and more recently C++ and Java, but Smalltalk..... BONK French Zombies are zapping me with lasers!
Post #8,701 by tuberculosis 9/12/01 5:36:31 PM Reply	Re: Speaking of smalltalk My first language was Fortran. Oh your poor thing! There's your problem for sure. The syntax mind bender is a prejudice you've formed over time. You're used to seeing stuff like HashMapAdd(map,key,value); Which is a really sucky syntax - even worse are the way javap prints out the prototypes as void java.util.HashMap.add(java.lang.Object,java.lang.Object) and you have no idea which argument which. Smalltalk puts arguments within the selectors (method names basically). dictionary at: aKey put: anObject the method name is at:put: or as more commonly written #at:put: Anyhow, the David N Smith book is pretty good in general. The Ken Howard book Developers Guide to Visualworks is really good if you're using Visualworks. The Art and Science of Smalltalk (forget the author offhand) is also quite decent.
Post #8,892 by Arkadiy 9/13/01 1:24:32 PM Reply	Re: Speaking of smalltalk Try this link: [link\|http://wiki.cs.uiuc.edu/VisualWorks/Joy+of+Smalltalk\|http://wiki.cs.uiuc...of+Smalltalk] I don't know if it's the best book, but it's online and it's free. I actually liked it. But, when you want to wrap your mind around the relationship between Class and Object and Metaclass and Behavior.... You are on your own. Wrack your brain til you get it.
Post #8,897 by Fearless Freep 9/13/01 1:35:53 PM Reply	Fortunately But, when you want to wrap your mind around the relationship between Class and Object and Metaclass and Behavior.... You are on your own. Wrack your brain til you get it That's more a curiosity for those inquisitive on 'how things work' then required knowledge for most programming Jay O'Connor "Going places unmapped to do things unplanned to people unsuspecting"
Post #8,921 by Arkadiy 9/13/01 2:34:53 PM Reply	I don't think _I_ could do without. I really can't work if there is any magic involved ( above the level of hardware :) )

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