horrido <horrido.hobb...@gmail.com> wrote: > Interestingly, I'm getting a fair amount of pushback on this. Personally, I > think it would be very helpful to have a live (updatable, so as to keep it > current) reference page for the class library, something that developers can > easily look up what they need. After all, most of the power of Pharo comes > from the class library and we need to make it as accessible as possible to > less experienced Pharoers (i.e., beginners). > > Exploring the class library through the System Browser is very inefficient. > This is further exacerbated by the fact that many classes and methods are > simply not well-documented (containing a cursory remark which is just barely > useful).
> > I realize that creating a live reference page is not easy to do. In fact, > it's a lot of work. But the absence of such a page is a real obstacle to > Pharo acceptance. > I have a simple example compoared with python. I want to programatically find the version number of current instance. In Python I go to the document page e.g. <https://docs.python.org/3/> and search for version. I get a pageful of hits which I can read and find the snswer (ie sys.version) For Pharo what search do I do? You don't need to implement a seach engine Google, Bing etc can do this and with a lot more resopuirces than Pharo can do, but you need the information in a restricted place e.g. one site. and it does not need to be dynamic The first thing I do for a new technology is RTFM. > > > horrido wrote > > Thanks. I gave your answer verbatim. I also added the following paragraph: > > > > The problem I find with today's developers is that they are rather > > closed-minded. They are rigid and inflexible, and not willing to adapt to > > new and different ways of doing things. In my generation (circa > > 1980–1990), > > people didn't have a problem with trying different technologies. That's > > why > > I had no issue with learning Smalltalk 10 years ago, after I had retired > > from a 20-year-long career in C systems programming and FORTRAN scientific > > programming. > > > > > > > > Sven Van Caekenberghe-2 wrote > >>> On 6 Oct 2017, at 14:54, horrido < > > > >> horrido.hobbies@ > > > >> > wrote: > >>> > >>> I received this comment from someone who complained: > >>> > >>> *What about the lack of documentation? From time to time I've checked > >>> some > >>> SmallTalk implementations like Squeak, GNU-Smalltalk and now Pharo. Of > >>> these, only GNU-SmallTalk appears to have a free, official programming > >>> guide > >>> and core library reference that any serious programmer expects from a > >>> language. > >>> > >>> https://www.gnu.org/software/smalltalk/manual-base/html_node/* > >>> > >>> I pointed to Pharo's documentation but then he came back with: > >>> > >>> *Then show me a link of the free, maintained reference documentation for > >>> the > >>> classes that form "the core library", like this one for Python > >>> (https://docs.python.org/3/library/index.html)* > >>> > >>> It's true, most Smalltalks do not have a core library reference, not > >>> even > >>> VisualWorks! So what is the proper response to this complaint? > >> > >> The first answer is that Pharo/Smalltalk is unique in that a running > >> system/IDE contains _all_ source code, _all_ documentation (class, > >> method, > >> help, tutorial), _all_ unit tests and _all_ runnable examples in a very > >> easy, accessible way. It takes some getting used to, but this is actually > >> better and much more powerful than any alternative. > >> > >> The second answer is that there are lots of books and articles that take > >> the classic/structured book/paper approach. There is > >> http://books.pharo.org, http://themoosebook.org, > >> http://book.seaside.st/book, http://medium.com/concerning-pharo and many > >> more. > >> > -- Mark
