[Cuis-dev] These strange days (and our community)

[Juan Vuletich]

Also, don't miss 
https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Learning-Cuis/blob/master/Quick-UI-Tour.md 
and all the stuff in the Learning-Cuis repo.

Cheers,
Juan Vuletich

On 3/29/2020 3:24 PM, Leam Hall via Cuis-dev wrote:
> Casey, thank you! That is a great encouragement.
>
> Given the isolation everyone is currently under, and my gut feel that 
> a job transition may be necessary in the next several months, I've set 
> myself to earn a Ruby programming certification. In some domains, a 
> certification is a key hiring factor.
>
> I enjoyed Ken's "Why Cuis?". He has several other videos I need to 
> watch, but I have to clamp down on how I spend my time. Certification 
> first, exponential growth afterwards.   :)
>
> You're right, one of the big questions was "How do I create and use a 
> simple non-GUI class?" I've not done enough digging yet, but that's 
> going to be one of my learning steps.
>
> Leam
>
>
>
> On 3/28/20 2:32 AM, Casey Ransberger via Cuis-dev wrote:
>> Hello Leam,
>>
>> I came to Smalltalk from Ruby and Objective-C, which both took strong 
>> influences from Smalltalk-80. Making the shift to Smalltalk was hard 
>> at first. I remember thinking “okay, this is cool, but where do I put 
>> my code?”
>>
>> The learning curve for Smalltalk starts out rather high, which is 
>> unfortunate. It’s radically different from most other programming 
>> languages. The good news is, in a very short period of time, you 
>> should see the difficulty fall off *stunningly* fast.
>>
>> Spend some time just exploring the tools. For each tool you learn to 
>> use, ever more of the system will begin to bend to your will. In my 
>> case I eventually found myself thinking “you know it’d be nice to 
>> have a task bar” and a few days later, with help from the community, 
>> I wrote a task bar. Same thing with UI themes.
>>
>> The point I want to stress is that it starts out hard, because it’s 
>> rather alien, but with every new thing you learn, you amplify the 
>> system’s power to explain itself to you.
>>
>> Another thing that you can do is click the world menu, say “save as” 
>> to save a backup copy of your working environment, and start 
>> intentionally breaking things to see what happens. Like doing marine 
>> science by throwing dynamite in the water and seeing what floats to 
>> the top. You can always restore your working environment later to get 
>> back up and running.
>>
>> Ruby inherits collection methods from Smalltalk, so #collect: 
>> #reject: #inject: #select: all do what you’d expect. Closures are 
>> even syntactically similar.
>>
>> #Ruby
>> x = foo.collect() { | i |
>> i.as_string()
>> }
>>
>> #Smalltalk
>> x := foo collect: [ :i |
>> i asString
>> ]
>>
>> If you are (as I am) particularly entertained by irresponsible 
>> metaprogramming via #method_missing() in Ruby, you’ll find its 
>> analogue in Smalltalk’s #doesNotUnderstand:.
>>
>> As far as where to put your code, you can evaluate small expressions 
>> in a Workspace window to experiment. To make something permanent, you 
>> can either add it to an existing class as an extension method, or 
>> create a new class. This is usually done via the System Browser, but 
>> it’s possible to do this in a workspace too, or from code in a 
>> method. Smalltalk is built to be maximally flexible and extensible; 
>> you’ll find that nothing is impossible.
>>
>> I’ve found that the Smalltalk community in general will be willing to 
>> help you as long as you put in the necessary effort with regard to 
>> learning enough to ask smart questions.
>>
>> Hope this is helpful, sorry if I’ve gotten details wrong in the code 
>> above. Working from memory.
>>
>> This is a short read that I think should sum up the ideas underlying 
>> the system, and should reinforce concepts you’ve picked up from Ruby:
>>
>> https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/smalltalk.html
>>
>> —Casey
>>
>>> On Mar 25, 2020, at 8:19 AM, Leam Hall via Cuis-dev 
>>> <cuis-dev at lists.cuis.st> wrote:
>>>
>>> Juan, et al.
>>>
>>> I am an Apprentice Ruby coder, and a lot of Ruby documents praise 
>>> Smalltalk. They are not very subtle about suggesting an awareness of 
>>> Smalltalk would help one's Ruby skills. Thus I found Cuis. I bought 
>>> two Smalltalk books, "Smalltalk-80" (Goldberg) and "Smalltak 
>>> Objects, and Design" (Liu).
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, I am not able to mentally bridge the gap between the 
>>> old books and the current Cuis. I have done a lot of text based 
>>> coding, even my Ruby is written in Vim and run in a shell window. 
>>> Part of the difficulty is personal, I'm trying to adjust to the GUI. 
>>> Sadly, I'm still trying, the learning is slow for me.   :)
>>>
>>> I appreciate what you and the others are doing. As I have time and 
>>> understanding, I will learn more. If there is a movement to unify 
>>> the Cuis and Smalltalk documentation, it might help those of us who 
>>> come to this without a Computer Science background.
>>>
>>> Thank you for Cuis.
>>>
>>> Leam
>>>
>>> On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 10:55 AM Juan Vuletich via Cuis-dev 
>>> <cuis-dev at lists.cuis.st <mailto:cuis-dev at lists.cuis.st>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     Hi Folks,
>>>
>>>     Coronavirus is hitting hard in many places. And places not hit
>>>     hard yet
>>>     are getting ready for it. This has been affecting daily life for
>>>     everyone. Let's keep in mind that the top priorities are to take
>>>     care of
>>>     ourselves and others, following orders and advice from local
>>>     authorities
>>>     and the WHO. Many people are facing extreme hardships, including
>>>     health
>>>     care and emergency workers, people who got ill and their loved 
>>> ones.
>>>     Let's hope it turns out to the best for them, and let's help them
>>>     when
>>>     possible.
>>>
>>>     For the rest of us, for the majority of the world, we just need 
>>> to be
>>>     very careful.
>>>
>>>     Many people are not able to work at their job or attend to school.
>>>     Some
>>>     of us are lucky enough to be able to keep working from our homes,
>>>     almost
>>>     as usual. In any case, for a lot of us (I know, we are the most 
>>> lucky
>>>     ones), the biggest challenge is to fight our own fear, anguish and
>>>     boredom. Let's spend good time with family and friends, talking,
>>>     playing
>>>     games, whatever we can do without leaving our homes. Let's try 
>>> to get
>>>     some exercise. This is great not only for the body, but also for 
>>> the
>>>     mind. My wife Lucía and my daughters Sofía and Diana have been
>>>     dancing
>>>     to some youtube videos. I must join them next time! Some TV is OK,
>>>     but
>>>     too much of it is not. Get enough rest. Take some time to be 
>>> calm and
>>>     quiet. Meditate. Spend time learning and practicing stuff you love.
>>>     Maybe we can make the most of this time by focusing on programming
>>>     projects.
>>>
>>>     So, use Cuis. Play with Cuis. Learn with Cuis. Learn about Cuis. 
>>> Feel
>>>     free to share your thoughts and feelings here. We are a community.
>>>     Many
>>>     of us have never meet in person, but we still share a lot. We are a
>>>     bunch of friends, even if it might be a little different kind of
>>>     friendship.
>>>
>>>     Let me tell how all this is going for me.
>>>
>>>     In Argentina, we are in a preventive quarantine. We still don't 
>>> have
>>>     many cases, but we (Argentina) want to flatten the exponential 
>>> growth
>>>     from the start. My kids are at home, as schools are closed. The
>>>     school
>>>     gave them a lot of stuff to "research", so this is becoming a 
>>> kind of
>>>     home schooling! Lucía and I are spending time helping them with 
>>> that.
>>>     Fortunately, we and our larger families are all healthy. We keep in
>>>     touch. We are both also doing home office for work. So we are quite
>>>     busy! Our home has a nice backyard and the weather is nice, so 
>>> we are
>>>     able to spend time outside.
>>>
>>>     I spend some time doing Cuis. I know I'm being quite slow in
>>>     answering
>>>     email and several of you are waiting an answer on some particular
>>>     topic.
>>>     I apologize for this, and I promise I'll eventually get to each
>>>     one of
>>>     them. I have also been working a few hours over several weeks on
>>>     VectorGraphics and TrueType. I have some updates to push, hopefully
>>>     today, and will tell in another email.
>>>
>>>     Thank you all for being around, helping Cuis grow, recoding videos
>>>     and
>>>     spreading the word, or simply sharing this space. Everybody,
>>>     please feel
>>>     free to share your feelings and thoughts.
>>>
>>>     Cheers,
>>>
>>>     --     Juan Vuletich
>>>     www.cuis-smalltalk.org <http://www.cuis-smalltalk.org/>
>>>     https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev
>>>     https://github.com/jvuletich
>>>     https://www.linkedin.com/in/juan-vuletich-75611b3
>>>     @JuanVuletich
>>>
>>>     --     Cuis-dev mailing list
>>>     Cuis-dev at lists.cuis.st <mailto:Cuis-dev at lists.cuis.st>
>>>     https://lists.cuis.st/mailman/listinfo/cuis-dev
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Cuis-dev mailing list
>>> Cuis-dev at lists.cuis.st
>>> https://lists.cuis.st/mailman/listinfo/cuis-dev
>>
>>
>


-- 
Juan Vuletich
www.cuis-smalltalk.org
https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev
https://github.com/jvuletich
https://www.linkedin.com/in/juan-vuletich-75611b3
@JuanVuletich