On to Smalltalk

Rating:
Summary: good place to start
Review: After poking around at the edges of Smalltalk over the years I decided to really devote some time to learning the language. I purchased the book, downloaded (for free) Smalltalk Express and opened to page one.

For those readers familiar with Patrick Henry Winston from his Lisp and AI books it will come as no surprise to learn that he has done it again, this time with Smalltalk. There is no extraneous material here to get in the way. The reader is guided up through the language given just the right amount of information at each step, building on what came before. By books end your developing in the GUI builder and on your way.

This book is not for the novice programmer and some familiarity with object oriented programming would be helpful. But for the experienced programmer looking to learn Smalltalk or looking to explore true object oriented concepts this book is recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Silly style; misleading content
Review: I bought this book based on the reviews as was sorely dissapointed.

The writing style is of a programmer who never took an english class (it almost reads as if it were a program; every paragraph has its own number, and the organization is reminiscent of a C program).

The content fits the style. E.g., in an early example he shows how you can modify the Integer class to have calorie converter functions (his example application is a food calorie viewer). It seemed bizzare to me, so asked on comp.smalltalk and found out that this is an inappropriate use of the feature.

All in all, this is one of the poorest programming books I've ever seen.

Shayne Wissler

Rating:
Summary: To the point
Review: I love this guy's writing style. It is just matter of fact and to the point. He cuts all the crap and teaches the language only. Result, you have a lean ~280 page book easily 1/4 the size of many other programming books. The author breaks all the topics up into small chunks and they're placed in logical order. This makes it not only easier to learn the material, but makes for a great reference book. If you've forgotten how to do something you can turn to the appropriate chapter and get the info you need without wading through many pages and searching. Each chapter is short and specific. Smalltalk is a great language and this gives you a great overview of it all.

Rating:
Summary: A Gentle Introduction to Smalltalk and OO Programming
Review: This book is basically a Smalltalk primer, with a lot of OO-design principles embedded in the lessons. While useful to anyone who is new to Smalltalk, it is written with the assumption that the reader is not only completely new to Smalltalk, but also to Object-Oriented programming and possibly to programming in general. Thus, the lessons contain not only an introduction to Smalltalk syntax and grammar, but also to basic OO concepts like inheritance, aggregation, and data abstraction, as well as iterators, recursion, and other basic programming techniques. If you are an experienced programmer new to Smalltalk, some of the programming style advice may seem elementary, but you will still get a good introduction to the Smalltalk language. This would also be an excellent book for a basic Object-Oriented programming class. The author very deliberately tries to teach good OO style, and what is learned here will still be applicable if the reader goes on to work with Java or C++.

What prevented me from giving the book five stars was:

(1) It is a little bit dated. The book mostly uses Smalltalk Express or Cincom's VisualWorks in its examples. Both of these are still freely available, and there are only a few small changes in the current versions from what is described in the book. However, one does need to be aware that Smalltalk is not a dead language, it is still being actively developed, and this book is now over 6 years old.

(2) The style is a little different. The material is divided into logical task-oriented chapters that build on one another (How to Create Classes and Instances, How to Define Classes that Inherit Instance Variables and Methods, etc.), but each chapter is written as a series of numbered paragraphs as little "micro-lessons." I did not find it hard to follow, but it may not be to everyone's tastes.

Again, this is a primer for beginners, aimed at teaching Object Oriented programming style as much as Smalltalk. If you are an experienced programmer, especially with OO experience, looking to learn Smalltalk in a hurry, this may not be the most suitable book for you, as the language's keywords and idioms and syntax are introduced bit by bit throughout the book, and there is no concise reference guide.

Rating:
Summary: The best of it's kind!
Review: This is an excellent book. Writien and organized in a style that is uncommonly clear and concise for an book of it's type. Winston explores the basic features of Smalltalk while continually implementing them in a workable application throughout the book. This is an extremely effective instruction technique. I recommend this book not only to Comp Sci students, but to professionals who want to add Smalltalk to their skillset.