[Cuis-dev] the demo challenge in Smalltalk

[Robert Chifflet]

if someone says "use a Workspace," they have too much background: they are
not a new learner, but a savvy insider.

i will try to state the obvious, though it sound crazy


Firstly, to see this code in a Workspace

    aWindow open.

the most obvious fact is that the instance in this case is NOT ( yet ) a
WINDOW to the learner.  It is just too obvious to say plain enough.

This is why for an ab initio learner, i begin with LIVE objects such as
that real, open Window with label

   "Text Editor"

and why given a TextEditor

   >>openInYourOwnWindowFrame

is so much more close to what can then take me to talk about Morph and
Layout.

I am trying to teach someone who is really intelligent and has already
rejected Python, but who wants an environment from which FFI calls can be
made to Godot engine offered by Steam on a mini PC.

To that extent i prefer Cuis, even if Pharo "would soon be easier" in Pharo
15.

I prefer Cuis, in part, because i see methods such as

  >>openInWorld
  >> openInHand

and because my learner already knows DrGeo is Cuis 7.1 and considers DrGeo
to be in top 3 cool things on PC.

Top 3.

imagine

Let's not lose brilliant kid of CS wizard parent, my grandchild.

If you DO think a SystemWindow instance that is not yet open on the screen
is a Window, you are not my pupil.

You may have already drunk the Kool-Aid, no offence intended, as i myself
had to work for a few years in APL after Smalltalk on IBM OS/2  left us in
OS/2 1.2 waiting for the OS/2 1.3 Developer Kit from Microscoff AFTER the
release of OS/2 2.0    ( we did get to 1.3 , but our huge client adopted
Windows with Visual Basic. ) Just try to explain That to a young person.
And that ATM machines ran which operating systems over which decades ? What
was a Nokia phone? And then i had MSN as a daily issue for my VW Smalltalk
work for over a decade ( ... NDA goes here ... ) while a Redmond
non-engineer VP sold our distant very senior $$ VP on .NET with C# but
later i would see Flash (!) adopted because a major shareholder .... so i
do know that it is a mad mad World as i live just north of the USA border
and had an American father and Métis mother and am a francophone in an
anglo capital city in a bilingual state. So ist es, eigentlich.

my advice to myself:  ( better in Cuis as TrueType Unicode kanji, each
linked to composable SVG from KanjiVG project )

落ち着いてください。

But an instance object #aWindow that has never opened is not yet a Window,
as the vm folks know and as Cuis World morph will know ( actually NOT know
about, in fact. )

So i do want to reach soon , but not TOO soon, aLayout FOR
aWindowNotYetBuilt and not yet on Display.

But instead i want to START from a live Window in a demo in which i am
confident i can make the very complex look enticingly simple.

Text Editor from World OPEN menu fails me in this simple heuristic task.

This not intended as a rant

but explaining is not easy

Credo:

Every Smalltalk YouYube video should display its DateThisExpired.

sincerely,

r


G.Robert Shiplett

PS
there is a very funny bit in the large paragraph. I hope someone did get a
laugh.

PPS
Pharo MOOC via Pharo Launcher is the short proof that we have an issue
presenting Smalltalk, as Stef says the learner should already know some
programming. i.e, Python before MOOC. No. Wrong. False. Some of our best
Smalltalkers were techs with domain expertise. No BASIC or Pascal or
Fortran or COBOL. Absolutely no APL.
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