csrabak wrote:
> 
> The persons needed about the same than the Java colleagues (which worked
> in a complimentary part of the project) to become proficient and
> productive in Smalltalk. 
> 
But by the time I was "proficient and productive in Smalltalk," I had
mastered the equivalent of an OS!  From threading, to windows, the main
event loop - all things that were magically behind the scenes in C, C++, and
even Ruby to an extent (which at the outer GUI level was down in the same
mess).  Whereas, it really did take only one reading to grok the syntax.


csrabak wrote:
> 
> We Smalltalkers take sometimes at face value certain things that clash in
> real world: the famous simplicity of the syntax (which Stef's famous
> postcard example) of Smalltalk is 
> completely flared by the overwhelming complexity of the class libraries.
> 

The fact that mastering anything takes time - is orthogonal to the book
issue.  The majority of books I came across in C++ (and needed copies of in
every office I worked, to the point where I got a $50 a month Safari books
subscription) were related to the language, not the libraries - full of
tips, gotchas, and other advice to not trip over the complexities of the
language itself - before even considering the first library!

The ease of use of a library is a function of the design skill of the
library developers.  But I bet you it was much easier to *write* that
library than it would have been in a static language in a non-live
environment ;-)

Sean
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