Every time I’m swept up in an new project I gird my loins by gathering a phalanx of books around me. I start by downloading all of the free PDF’s I can find. Stephane Ducasse, author the the Robots books, has an exhaustive list of free out-of-print Smalltalk books. So I got them all. I don’t know how many of these books I’ll ever read, but I feel good having them there, just in case.
I like real books, so I scoured the used book list on Amazon and was able to find paper copies of many of my free PDF’s.
Most of these books were first published in the 80’s and 90’s, with a few of the Squeak books arriving after 2000.
Of all of these books, my favorite is SMALLTALK-80 by Adele Goldberg and David Robson (1989). Though the book’s cover gives it a quaint vintage look, the content is contemporary and the writing admirably clear—perfect for a student like me.
I like this book so much that I carry it with me on my walks around San Francisco and read it while I sit in Starbucks eating pastries and drinking espressos. Now and then some generic dude will see my antique book and comment, “Damn. Is that language still around? Why would you want to learn that when you could learn Java?”
I also have a soft spot in my heart for Squeak: Learn Programming with Robots by Stephane Ducasse, which I’ve mentioned previously. This book is good-spirited and all about having fun with programming. It’s an absolutely painless, fun introduction to Smalltalk. A kid can handle this book easily—even an adult kid.
My buddy Bill G. observed me collecting these dusty, out of print tomes. Back in the 80′s he did some Smalltalk programming in The Valley. He said, “There used to be an all-Smalltalk books store in Palo Alto on University Avenue, right down the road from Xerox. That’s how hot Smalltalk was in those days.” He paused. “I think that place is a Starbucks now.”
That’s cool with me. I need a clean, well-lighted place to hang out and read my books and get hassled by Java programmers.
Happy hacking…
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
My favorite of the bunch is “The Art and Science of Smalltalk”, not so much the science part, but more the “art” part. Good programming is an art!
I’m still working on the “syntax” part of Smalltalk. The “Art and Science” are the inspiring bright light at the end of the tunnel.
“The Art and Science of Smalltalk” is one of my favorites as well. It is just well written and cover topics that other books gloss over. The other books that I recommend are.
Smalltalk, Objects, and Design by Chamond Liu this is another well written book that cover Smalltalk in a very object first way.
Don’t over look some of the Visualwork documentation it is the full set available with the Non-commercial downloads of Visualworks and is very well written and much of it applies to smalltalks in general.
Also when learning Smalltalk coming from another language looking at code is a different experience. The reason to work on this is that smalltalk code is very simple but different from other dynamic C-like languages. Two resources can help you through it. One is the source code browser at:
http://soek.goodies.st/
This displays the source code and comments in a format that is easier for a Rubiest to search and understand.
Second “I Can Read C++ and Java But I Can’t Read Smalltalk” at “https://www2.informatik.hu-berlin.de/swt/lehre/PR_MTI_0910/restricted/literature/LaLonde_Read_Smalltalk.pdf ” is great for tips on how to read smalltalk code. The payback is that reading the code becomes a pleasure after a short time.
Erik,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I appreciate being pointed in the right direction.
Doug