This book has been written to help you to help yourself. You may be considering adopting Smalltalk for your next project. You may have just started to program in Smalltalk. You may have been doing it for a while. Whatever your level of experience you'll know that Smalltalk is different. It's different from C, different even from C++, different to almost anything you'll have used before. These differences help give Smalltalk the power and productivity for which it is famous, but it's only by knowing how to exploit the differences that you can harness this power for yourself.
Smalltalk is different from other languages not only in its syntax (the parts of the language and how they go together), but in its whole philosophy of programming. Few programming languages are as interactive as Smalltalk. Fewer still make nearly all their source-code visible to the programmer on-line. This combination of features makes Smalltalk very powerful, but it can also make it intimidating to learn. This book aims to de-mystify that process by providing a practical rather than an academic introduction.
The huge code library that comes with Smalltalk is also a key part of its power. But which classes do what, which should you reuse, and which should you subclass? The aim of this book is to teach you the things you need to know to be able to program effectively in Smalltalk. You'll also learn which parts of the system you can safely ignore. You'll learn how to design your own classes, and how to use the existing ones. You'll learn how and when to use inheritance. You'll learn how to make the best use of the development tools, and how to split the work among the members of a team. Most of all, you'll learn how to adopt the Smalltalk style—how to find out what you need to know, without going to the manual. The Art and Science of Smalltalk isnot just for programmers though. Managers or leaders of teams using Smalltalk should find a lot to interest them, especially in Part II.
This book is not an introduction to programming. It is assumed that you have at least some experience of another language. Experience in C, BASIC, Pascal, COBOL, or any similar language is fine. Familiarity with using (though not necessarily programming with), a graphical user-interface is also essential. Microsoft Windows, the Macintosh UI, or the X window system are good examples.
The Art and Science of Smalltalk is not a methodology. It's not intended to give you a defined process that you can feed your problem into at one end, and have Smalltalk code come out of at the other. Sometimes, competing views of how things should be done will be presented. You'll have to decide which philosophy to adopt in your particular circumstances, but you will be making an informed decision. In this way, the book is not prescriptive, but instead it's 'assistive'. It's also not a tutorial. You are however invited—in fact you're encouraged—to try things out using the system. Smalltalk style supports this, and you should experiment whenever something is not clear, or you want to confirm or enhance your understanding.
You should treat this book as complementary to the documentation that comes with Smalltalk. The manual tells you how to install and fireup Smalltalk, and gives detailed and up-to-date descriptions of all the tools and many of the key system classes. Although this book includes an introduction to object-oriented programming (OOP), Smalltalk, and the development environment, its main purpose is to tell you how to make use of the tools, and how to use and reuse the system classes to maximum effect. It tells you the things you would otherwise only learn through experience.
Smalltalk is different from other languages not only in its syntax (the parts of the language and how they go together), but in its whole philosophy of programming. Few programming languages are as interactive as Smalltalk. Fewer still make nearly all their source-code visible to the programmer on-line. This combination of features makes Smalltalk very powerful, but it can also make it intimidating to learn. This book aims to de-mystify that process by providing a practical rather than an academic introduction.
The huge code library that comes with Smalltalk is also a key part of its power. But which classes do what, which should you reuse, and which should you subclass? The aim of this book is to teach you the things you need to know to be able to program effectively in Smalltalk. You'll also learn which parts of the system you can safely ignore. You'll learn how to design your own classes, and how to use the existing ones. You'll learn how and when to use inheritance. You'll learn how to make the best use of the development tools, and how to split the work among the members of a team. Most of all, you'll learn how to adopt the Smalltalk style—how to find out what you need to know, without going to the manual. The Art and Science of Smalltalk isnot just for programmers though. Managers or leaders of teams using Smalltalk should find a lot to interest them, especially in Part II.
This book is not an introduction to programming. It is assumed that you have at least some experience of another language. Experience in C, BASIC, Pascal, COBOL, or any similar language is fine. Familiarity with using (though not necessarily programming with), a graphical user-interface is also essential. Microsoft Windows, the Macintosh UI, or the X window system are good examples.
The Art and Science of Smalltalk is not a methodology. It's not intended to give you a defined process that you can feed your problem into at one end, and have Smalltalk code come out of at the other. Sometimes, competing views of how things should be done will be presented. You'll have to decide which philosophy to adopt in your particular circumstances, but you will be making an informed decision. In this way, the book is not prescriptive, but instead it's 'assistive'. It's also not a tutorial. You are however invited—in fact you're encouraged—to try things out using the system. Smalltalk style supports this, and you should experiment whenever something is not clear, or you want to confirm or enhance your understanding.
You should treat this book as complementary to the documentation that comes with Smalltalk. The manual tells you how to install and fireup Smalltalk, and gives detailed and up-to-date descriptions of all the tools and many of the key system classes. Although this book includes an introduction to object-oriented programming (OOP), Smalltalk, and the development environment, its main purpose is to tell you how to make use of the tools, and how to use and reuse the system classes to maximum effect. It tells you the things you would otherwise only learn through experience.
