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[DOCS] The Blue Book and Squeak

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Casey Ransberger-2

[DOCS] The Blue Book and Squeak

The relationship between Smalltalk-80: The Language and its Implementation and Squeak is important. It would be really cool if we could use the textual content from it in Squeak, especially the discussion of the language. Where the book might have a picture, we might use a live, interactive object that the reader could peel off the page and play with. The community would need to update some of the text to account for differences between Squeak and Smalltalk-80, but I think that could be really fun: what if people could edit it like a wiki? The possibilities are endless.

I imagine there may be some obstacles to do with usage rights and licensing, but the second half of the book has been made available online for free, so we might be able to make it happen?

If anyone here is in touch with Adele Goldberg or David Robson: it would be wonderful if this message was received by them.

Also, anyone at Addison Wesley or Xerox might also be able to help point me in the right direction.

--
Casey Ransberger

pascal.vollmer

Re: [DOCS] The Blue Book and Squeak

Casey Ransberger <casey.obrien.r <at> gmail.com> writes:

> The relationship between Smalltalk-80: The Language and its Implementation and
Squeak is important. It would be really cool if we could use the textual content
from it in Squeak, especially the discussion of the language. Where the book
might have a picture, we might use a live, interactive object that the reader
could peel off the page and play with. The community would need to update some
of the text to account for differences between Squeak and Smalltalk-80, but I
think that could be really fun: what if people could edit it like a wiki? The
possibilities are endless.
>
+1
Another advantage would be the clear distinction between 1) conforming to ST-80
w.r.t. implementation, 2) conforming w.r.t. interface, 3) not conforming to ST.
I do not know the share of 1) + 2). But I guess it is considerable. Having a
solid specification and rationale for it would be a great improvement.
When I explain Squeak to other people I tell them that it is a dialect of ST.
But I feel like: please don't ask me exactly to delimit where Squeak is not
conforming and why.
B.t.w. there has been on SqueakMap a package named ANSI Compatibility. Anyone
taking care of this one?