Customer Reviews

Discovering Smalltalk (Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a good book for someone who has no OO knowledge/experience wanting to learn Smalltalk for several reasons: 1) it avoids overloading the student with too much theory. It is particularly good at side-stepping a high-level description of objects in chapter one followed by designing objects with classes as an exercise in chapter two. In fact, it takes the opposite approach of those Fasttrack books; the first five chapters gently introduce the student to the Smalltalk environment and to object interactions. 2) It sticks to the task at hand: teaching Smalltalk to the neophyte. It does this by avoiding the Language Comparison Holy War and the My Style Is Better Than Yours Holy War. 3) It takes its time with each topic, reinforcing each point with words, exercises and homeworks.

There are two points weighing against this book as it stands: 1) it's dated; it's based on an older version of Smalltalk/V and uses constructs avoided now (such as the message "become" to change a variable's state). 2) For the person on the fast-track, it's slow. It spends a whole chapter on numbers, and waits three more before discussing classes.

In summary, this is a good book from which to learn Smalltalk and objects. I recommend using Smalltalk Express, a descendant of Smalltalk/V freely available from ObjectShare, along with the book.

The book is exceptionally well written and is ideal for Smalltalk beginners. It might also be suited for Smalltalk literates who want to see how CRC design and Smalltalk fit together (Chapter 8).

The book takes you step by step through problems and takes you to a real discovery because it is honest enough to admit that first attempts turn out to be insufficient in later stages.
It, therefore, spares you to wonder how an experienced designer gets everything right the first time, but teaches you to rethink what you have done after each step and how to systematically perform iterative development.

I wholeheartedly recommend the book, which is by the way an excellent fit to the freely available Smalltalk Express distribution (Smalltalk/V).

A good book for those wanting to get their "feet wet" in Smalltalk. Doesn't go over advanced topics. Overall, a good book.