Customer Reviews (1)

Great introduction to object-orientation and smalltalk.
The author takes a single application "Towers of Hanoi" and starts with simple examples in C, Pascal, Lisp and Smalltalk. He then proceeds to expand on the simple smalltalk example making more extensive usage of the language and object oriented concepts with each step. As the title states, the book is just a "taste" and makes no pretense of being a reference manual. It's short enough to be easily digested yet large enough to give you a good feel for the concepts.

I first read this book years ago and after long searching, finally found another copy. It was well worth the hunt. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The thrilling story of how Smalltalk came to be.
This book describes the process by which Smalltalk was introduced to people outside Xerox PARC, where it was developed.

This book first describes the incredibly exciting history of how Smalltalk was built from scratch. It then goes on to show the way in which Smalltalk was madepublic. At first, this was an engineering process. Large companies werecontacted and offered to participate by porting the Smalltalk VM to theirmachines, and then running an image provided on tape.

Each of these teamsthen wrote a paper on their experience, and these original papers areincluded in this book. Xerox PARC also wrote its own paper.

These papersare an invaluable source of information for any Smalltalker. They rangefrom overall design issues down to statistics on the work of the VM andimage contents.

Chapters in this book were written by several people,including key people in the original Smalltalk 80 team that now is back atwork producing Squeak... ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Java, C++, Python, Eiffel, Smalltalk, Ruby, Simula, Common Lisp, Oberon, Clu, Objective-C, Squeak, Sather, Pike, D, Oxygene, C Sharp, Jade, Agentsheets, Magik, Python for S60, Visual Prolog, Oak, Pharo, Embedded C++, Spec Sharp, F-Script, Lava, Boo, Ferite, Vistasmalltalk, Strongtalk, Smalltalk Yx, Sing Sharp, Fuxi Programming Language, Nu, Monkeybars Framework, Bistro, Little Smalltalk, Clascal, Object Rexx, Active Oberon, Chora, Lightweight Java. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 350. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Common Lisp, commonly abbreviated CL, is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, published in ANSI standard document ANSI INCITS 226-1994 (R2004), (formerly X3.226-1994 (R1999)). From the ANSI Common Lisp standard the Common Lisp HyperSpec has been derived for use with web browsers. Common Lisp was developed to standardize the divergent variants of Lisp (though mainly the MacLisp variants) which predated it, thus it is not an implementation but rather a language specification. Several implementations of the Common Lisp standard are available, including free and open source software and proprietary products. Common Lisp is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language. It supports a combination of procedural, functional, and object-oriented programming paradigms. As a dynamic programming language, it facilitates evolutionary and incremental software development, with iterative compilation into efficient run-time programs. Common Lisp includes CLOS, an object system that supports multimethods and method combinations. It is extensible through standard features such as Lisp macros (compile-time code rearrangement accomplished by the program itself) and reader macros (extension of syntax to give special meaning to characters reserved for users for this...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=6068 ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Lisp, Perl, Python, Mumps, Smalltalk, Ruby, Logo, Tcl, Self, Common Lisp, Objective-C, Rebol, Squeak, Windows Powershell, Mobile Development, Supercollider, Oz, Magik, Nil, Newlisp, Runtime Revolution, Keykit, Python for S60, Arc, Pharo, *lisp, Geometric Description Language, Incr Tcl, Neko, Mdl, Multilisp, F-Script, Picolisp, Ferite, Tcl/java, Portable Standard Lisp, Euler, Strongtalk, Smalltalk Yx, Eulisp, S-Lang, Cecil, Monkeybars Framework, Tcllib, Steptalk, Metal, Bistro, Itk, Little Smalltalk, Flow Java, Miis, Cel, Bbn Lisp. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 378. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular amongst programmers. Larry Wall continues to oversee development of the core language, and its upcoming version, Perl 6. Perl borrows features from other programming languages including C, shell scripting (sh), AWK, and sed. The language provides powerful text processing facilities without the arbitrary data length limits of many contemporary Unix tools, facilitating easy manipulation of text files. It is also used for graphics programming, system administration, network programming, applications that require database access and CGI programming on the Web. Perl is nicknamed "the Swiss Army chainsaw of programming languages" due to its flexibility and adaptability. Larry Wall began work on Perl in 1987, while working as a programmer at Unisys, and released version 1.0 to the comp.sources.misc newsgroup on December 18, 1987. The language expanded rapidly over the next few years. Perl 2, re...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=23939 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

If there was ever a book that needed to be brought back into print...
If someone out there from Addison-Wesley is listening, hopefully they'll hear this plea to bring "Smalltalk-80: The Language and its Implementation" back into print.There is simply no better resource to completely cover this beautiful, unique system.Smalltalk is an extremely important language for both OOP and otherwise; there are volumes of concepts here that are remarkably relevant to this day, and yet we still have much to learn that our friends at Xerox PARC were able to accomplish 20+ years ago.

We like to think today that we know how to write books on programming, but I'll tell you, this is one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read on the subject.Surprisingly clear and thought-provoking, this book doesn't beat you over the head with the concept, but gives a basic idea and lets you use your own creativity in applying the material.Truly a book that appreciates the "programming is an art and a science" philosophy.

My copy of "Smalltalk-80: The Language" should arrive at my doorstep any day now :) ... Read more

Product Description
With Squeak, developers have a free, complete, portable, high-performance, open source Smalltalk-80 implementation whose virtual machine is written entirely in Smalltalk, making it simple to debug, analyze, and change your code. This book's unique format and bite-size structure makes it easy to learn Squeak -- regardless of your previous experience with objects. Squeak: A Quick Trip to ObjectLand overcomes the traditional Smalltalk learning curve by presenting Squeak in the format of a running conversation between a programmer and an imaginary "Object Wizard." You'll start with the basics of object development, then learn key Squeak concepts that let you write real software almost immediately. Next, build your skills incrementally, mastering numbers, debugging and testing, the class hierarchy, collections, Booleans and blocks, conditional execution, iteration and recursion, streams and files, and more. For every developer who wishes to learn Squeak -- regardless of previous experience. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Excellent book for beginners, provides for fun baby steps.
I will be subjective on this: If you are a beginner on Smalltalk/Squeak and want to wet your feet in an amicable way, this is a great book. In contrast to other more advanced books, this one includes a CD which has the Squeak 3.0 image, somewhat dated but follows exactly what the book is talking about. Anyway, you can always download the latest and greatest Squeak form http://squeak.org.

Call me lame but when I am learning something from scratch I need guidance and I like to make fun baby steps which take me in the right direction with the least bore or frustration. You will be pleasantly surprised that this book also covers a lot of ground.

I am giving this book 5 stars :-).

An unstructured introduction to Smalltalk, not for everyone
Smalltalk is a language that I have played with on and off over the years, but have never approached with a great deal of seriousness. This spring, I will be teaching a course in programming language concepts for the first time. Therefore, when I received this book, I was happy for the chance to refresh my knowledge of the language. Squeak is an open source implementation of Smalltalk and it is very easy to use. The CD with the book contains an implementation of Squeak and it is possible to download it from the website ...BR> Written in the style of a chat between the user and a Smalltalk objective wizard, the conversation steps you through the basics of object-oriented programming, as implemented in Smalltalk. It is not a typical book on how to program, to get up to full speed in Smalltalk, you will have to find some additional material to work through. Nevertheless, it works very well as an introduction to the structure of the Smalltalk language.
To people who are accustomed to reading traditional introductory programming books, this one may turn them off. While there is some of the traditional sequence that starts with a "Hello World" program and goes through variables, conditional expressions and loops; file I/O and user-defined data types, it lacks much of the standard structure. The authors rely on the chat method sending messages to shift the knowledge from source object to target object.
If you are interested in a basic introduction to the Smalltalk language and can tolerate a conversational approach to learning, then this book will work for you. However, if your interest is in learning more than the basics or you prefer a structured approach to learning, then this book will probably not serve your needs.

Nice introduction to squeak
As an object-oriented programmer, I found this to be an excellent book despite some obvious deficiencies.As a C++ and Java programmer accustomed to using VI, I found this book helpful in that it contains a very nice introduction to the Squeak environment, in which all squeak code is written and run.The book covers Smalltalk syntax and basic OO design.It is written in an enlightened manner as a dialog between two objects (a teacher and a student) who pass messages back and forth.In this manner, the object-oriented paradigm is used even in so far as the gramatical style of the book.It is a quick and fun read but at times trite.A few obvious typographical errors exist.Unfortunately, the arrangement of topics in the book is awkward and prevents anyone from experimenting with any substantial code until they have finished 3/4 of the book.It is essential that anyone new to Smalltalk works the exercises as they appear in the text inorder to develop some experience with the environment.Anyone wishing to use Smalltalk to solve real problems must obtain further language references, as this book is only a brief introduction.

Buy "Smalltalk 80 The Language" instead.
This book stands out for all the wrong reasons. I've got quite a few books in my little CS library and this is the only book I've regreted buying. Squeak is a Smalltalk-80 system with extra libraries for multimedia and communications. For the same price as this book you can learn about Smalltalk from the "Smalltalk 80 The Language" book. This book is more detailed, has extensive example code for the presented techniques, has an entire example system, and it actually challenges the reader instead of insulting his intelligence. The Squeak book falls flat on these points.I think it was Alan Perlis who said that a language which didn't change the way you thought about programming wasn't worth knowing. Smalltalk is one of those languages worth knowing. The Squeak book doesn't get this message across. This book is not about enlightenment. You will never find yourself closing this book then sitting back inorder to give yourself a chance totry to inernalise some idea which you suspect you only half understood. The reason why is not because of fantastically clear writing but because you never get past the "point the mouse at this..... now click and type the name of the class" stage.

If you want to learn about Squeak and you realise understanding requires effort, then don't buy this book.

An excellent introduction to Squeak and smalltalk.
Even though I was familiar with both the smalltalk computer language and the Squeak smalltalk environment, I bought this book because I was intrigued by its structure, which is basically an extended dialogue between a naive user named "Jim" and virtual guides called the "Objective Wizard" and the "Objective Librarian".I was hoping to see a smalltalk equivalent to Friedman and Felleisen's magnificent book "The Little Schemer", which used a similar format to introduce the scheme programming language.Well, almost any book would be a disappointment after TLS, and this book certainly isn't in the same league (but it doesn't try to be).As an introduction to object-oriented programming concepts, to the smalltalk programming language, and to the Squeak implementation of smalltalk, this book is first-rate and well worth buying, especially for those who have never programmed in smalltalk before.It is quite elementary and should be graspable by almost anyone with a basic understanding of computer concepts (including people who have never programmed before).If you're coming to this book with no experience in smalltalk but with experience in another object-oriented programming language (e.g. C++ or java), be warned: smalltalk is probably the most extreme example of an OO language in that _everything_ is an object (even simple data types like integers and booleans, and even blocks of code).This imposes a conceptual barrier that the authors do an exceptionally good job of helping the reader through (or at least so it seemed to me, but then, I already knew all this material).The book is quite limited in its scope, and you'll need to read at least another book or two before you really understand smalltalk (Mark Guzdial's books are good next choices if you're using Squeak).Also, the book has a cutesy style which is occasionally irritating, especially when the "Jim" character tries to hit on the "Objective Librarian".This is supposed to humanize the book, but goes a bit far for my taste.However, this is only a tiny blemish on an otherwise excellent book. ... Read more

Product Description

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First Workshop on Self-sustaining Systems, S3, held in Potsdam, Germany, in May 2008.

S3 is a forum for discussion of topics relating to computer systems and languages that are able to bootstrap, implement, modify, and maintain themselves. One property of these systems is that their implementation is based on small but powerful abstractions; examples include (amongst others) Squeak/Smalltalk, COLA, Klein/Self, PyPy/Python, Rubinius/Ruby, and Lisp. Such systems are the engines of their own replacement, giving researchers and developers great power to experiment with, and explore future directions from within their own small language kernels.