I am not sure if choose squeak/smalltalk or another language. HELP

Hi!

I'm a total newbie at all ;-)
I don't know about squeak, I'm not a programmer... I
only know about linux ;-D So sure I will say a lot of
stupid thinks.

First of all, squeak overload my CPU. 80-90% all the
time, even if I do nothing. Except if I move the mouse
(then I get 100%).
I have a 300Mhz with 64 Mb RAM. Its old, I know, but
it means that I can't program in squeak? And the
worst, it means that all the programs I do (even the
smallest) will eat as much CPU and RAM?

I want to learn to develop programs for building
simple tools for children, math quiz, games for learn
the multiplications, learn vocabulary, etc... I'm a
teacher (in a poor school). I can't afford to buy
computers. We have 4 pentiums 300Mhz with 64 Mb and 4
pentiums 200Mhz mmx with 32Mb RAM. Is squeak /
smalltalk for us? Or it would be better to choose
another language like C,  python or ruby...? (java is
ruled out because the programs in java are veeeery
slow in this PCs)

Second, I don't understand very well squeak one thing,
I have to install an image of squeak, a VM and a
sources file. Why sources file has another version
that image of squeak.

Third, I have read almost all post in the list and I
have the feeling that with squeak/smalltalk I could do
anything, but then, why the projects you can find are
so few and so strange? You can't find an mp3 ripper or
a CD burner or a program for doing a backup or a fast
downloader or a DVD author or a simple image cutter...

Forth, is it possible the comunication with the
exterior of squeak? What I mean is, if we could do,
for example, a gui interface for a console program (a
frontend). Or a program with needs comunication with
special devices like webcams or scanners...?


Thank you.
Regards.


Antonio.


               
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Hi
>
> I'm a total newbie at all ;-)
> I don't know about squeak, I'm not a programmer...
so am I
>
> First of all, squeak overload my CPU. 80-90% all the
> time, even if I do nothing. Except if I move the mouse
> (then I get 100%).
Maybe you can use an older version of squeak
http://ftp.squeak.org/

but maybe, using some parameters when launching squeak will help...
squeak -m ...  etc..   somebody will tell you


> Second, I don't understand very well squeak one thing,
> I have to install an image of squeak, a VM and a
> sources file. Why sources file has another version
> that image of squeak.
Sources files allows to properly display the code in the browser...
but you don't really have to care about that...  except 3.9 has a new
sources files...
>
> Third, I have read almost all post in the list and I
> have the feeling that with squeak/smalltalk I could do
> anything, but then, why the projects you can find are
> so few and so strange? You can't find an mp3 ripper or
> a CD burner or a program for doing a backup or a fast
> downloader or a DVD author or a simple image cutter...

projects are more etoys stuff... programs in squeak/ST are self
contained in the image...  you can look at the class and find
appropriate method.
For instance, to read a flash file...
it's something like:
FlashFileReader fileNamed: '/MyDocs/aFile.swf'

to read a mp3 file...  you can open a file list and right clic on a mp3 file...
MPEGMoviePlayerMorph playFile: '/MyDocs/aFile.mp3
...
>
> Forth, is it possible the comunication with the
> exterior of squeak? What I mean is, if we could do,
> for example, a gui interface for a console program (a
> frontend). Or a program with needs comunication with
> special devices like webcams or scanners...?

possible but more complicated I guess
you probably need to use OSProcess

hope that helps a bit ;)

Cédrick

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Hi Antonio,

Antonio San. escribió:
> Hi!
>
> I'm a total newbie at all ;-)
> I don't know about squeak, I'm not a programmer... I
> only know about linux ;-D So sure I will say a lot of
> stupid thinks.
>
>  
So I'm in both senses (newbie on Squeak and user of Linux).

[...] Have you tried LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project)? If you can afford
to get only one powerful computer you can make all your old computer run
the same software in the newer one at (almost) the same speed. I have
implemented it on a public School and a small enterprise long time ago
and was the solution to make all the hardware work with ultimate
software. Cheap empower of older hardware to run newer software seems a
nice solution to your problem (of course you still need to get the
powerful computer) and better that run older software on older hardware
(but you could get still an older version of squeak that run on them, I
have readed that in the future we will have a modular and smaller squeak
but I don't know how long it takes).

In the meantime you can use may be python and some of the development
environments for it [1]. There is and option for teaching python using a
robots like programming environment but I don't remember the name.
Anyway I think that the best first experience to teach programming and
computing to children is Squeak if we consider that they live in a media
rich environment (TV, Radio, News, Videogames, Movies).

[1] http://wiki.slec.net/LenguajePython/HerramientasParaPython

[...]
> Forth, is it possible the comunication with the
> exterior of squeak? What I mean is, if we could do,
> for example, a gui interface for a console program (a
> frontend). Or a program with needs comunication with
> special devices like webcams or scanners...?
>
>  
[...]

I see Squeak some kind of too much self contained (may be is because of
the "borg" assimilation strategy) but would be nice to have Squeak
communicating with external programs and languages (may be XmlRCP)...
ummm.... at this moment I'm thinking in some kind of XServer and Scheme
implementations inside Squeak (if I'm not wrong) and trying to run
external linux programs inside Squeak... something similar to the java
VNC client for X.

> Thank you.
> Regards.
>
>
> Antonio.
>
>
>  
Cheers,

Offray


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Did you try my environment for teaching kids how to program?
http://smallwiki.unibe.ch/botsinc/
Have a look at the videos.
Now that 3.9 is out I should produce a new version which will be  
certainly faster

Stef

On 31 août 06, at 18:02, Antonio San. wrote:

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