Hello, Smalltalk is the most beautiful language I ever met. I started learning a few languages but Smalltalk is always the different one on my mind. After seeing the Smalltalk syntax I just can get it out of my mind and every other language, every other library looks ugly to me.
I think, although it is one of the oldest languages the reason it didn't get acceptance widely is the need for a file-based approach, (like Python, Ruby or even C, Pascal) which currently only GNU Smalltalk provides. But, after trying to write a few programs with GNU Smalltalk, unfortunately, I decided that I should learn also another scripting language to do serious work and keep GNU Smalltalk just for experimental purposes, at least for now. I took notes about the problems I faced during my tryings with GNU Smalltalk and I will list the most crucial things below. I will also tell in which areas I can help. Here are they: - Errors are very uninformative When compared with other languages' error reports, GNU Smalltalk's error reports are very uninformative. Actually, I for the first time, faced with a language that I cannot find out where the errors are. Most errors does not say in which line the error occured, leaving it to you to find out the error from other clues it gives. Also, I get similar error reports for different kind of errors. - Documentation should be improved I know that only very few people is currently working on GNU Smalltalk and creating the language's core and writing an elegant documentation for it cannot be done at the same time with this many people, also we can't expect a person to be talented for every kind of task. But, at least every feature should be given an example usage so that other people who does not know much about core but eager to help this beautiful project may create a comprehensive and more explanatory tutorial for GNU Smalltalk. For example, there is a Tk binding for GNU Smalltalk which is a great feature. But I couldn't find any documentation for it, didn't understand the long sample programs written using it and that's why couldn't use it. Also trying to find out myself didn't give any good results, either. I can help with documentation. - Installer for different platforms should be present There are many many many Windows or MacOS users out there, and for middle or beginner level programmers an installer is a must. Especially on Windows it is a pain to compile projects using GNU tools and most programmers simply won't do it. I prepared a basic installer for GNU Smalltalk but because my knowledge is not enough I don't exactly know which files should be included. Also, I couldn't compile the extra packages except the Tk binding, Blox. I can prepare an installer interface but somebody with more knowledge should help me compiling and listing the files which should be included. For example, my GNU Smalltalk program always crashes when an error occurs in my scripts and I suspect it is a thing I do wrong while compiling the GST. If somebody compiles GST and its packages and zip it to me I will gladly prepare an elegant installer for it. These are the crucial things I noted and pushed me to learn another language. I think most of them are soluble problems. After solving these problems we can move on to do fun parts which is promoting the language with a more attractive site, more tutorials, success stories etc... Are there people who can say "I'm in for this, this and this"? Maybe the core programmers also can list the difficulties they face and we can improve ourselves to learn some of that concepts. Or they can list the things they wanted from other users? Maybe more up-to-date sample programs? I will write a tic-tac-toe game as soon as I learn how to write Blox programs, I promise :) _______________________________________________ help-smalltalk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-smalltalk
