Point of potential interest.

Anyone seen the BlueJ development environment?

It's meant as an aid to teach Java.

I think it's interesting that it works by allowing you to create a live  
environment of Java objects. A pallid imitation of Smalltalk. (But still  
kinda cool.)

Blake-

On Feb 8, 2007, at 11:49 PM, Blake wrote:

> Anyone seen the BlueJ development environment?
>
> It's meant as an aid to teach Java.
>
> I think it's interesting that it works by allowing you to create a  
> live environment of Java objects. A pallid imitation of Smalltalk.  
> (But still kinda cool.)

I've played with BlueJ some myself.  I was playing with it because I  
specifically was looking for a way to get some Smalltalkishness for  
Java, specifically some interactivity.            xxxxxxxx

That was back in 2000, when I was taking a Java class that was mostly  
about writing GUIs in Swing for my sophomore year of college. I had  
been using Squeak for about a year, having taught myself Smalltalk  
over the previous year.  Like most who take an earnest look at  
Smalltalk, I was hooked, and Smalltalk had replaced Python as my  
favorite language, where it's remained since. No small feat for a  
language enthusiast during a time where there are a lot of  
contenders, some of which that are full featured and fun to code in,  
languages like Io, Factor, Ruby, Python, etc.

Anyway, I was trying to find something to give me some of what  
Smalltalk does for Java and ended up playing with BlueJ.  It is  
indeed a learning tool, and past that it is of a very limited  
usefulness. Now that I get paid to code in Java (and Python, but I'm  
hoping to move that part to Squeak soon), I've not found a use for  
BlueJ, and I get similar benefit from tools like Jython, which can  
access any and all Java objects, including subclassing Java classes  
as well as BeanShell.  Naturally, it'd be nice to get some GUI  
inspectors and a class browser, but at least being able to send  
messages and play around with the retuned values.

For those interested in tools like eToys, you might be interested in  
Greenfoot (screenshots: http://www.greenfoot.org/about/ 
screenshots.html ), which is sort of a cross between BlueJ and a  
wanna-be eToys.


Regards,
Aaron

On Thu, 08 Feb 2007 23:45:23 -0800, Aaron Reichow <[hidden email]>  
wrote:

> That was back in 2000, when I was taking a Java class that was mostly  
> about writing GUIs in Swing for my sophomore year of college. I had been  
> using Squeak for about a year, having taught myself Smalltalk over the  
> previous year.  Like most who take an earnest look at Smalltalk, I was  
> hooked, and Smalltalk had replaced Python as my favorite language, where  
> it's remained since. No small feat for a language enthusiast during a  
> time where there are a lot of contenders, some of which that are full  
> featured and fun to code in, languages like Io, Factor, Ruby, Python,  
> etc.

I've had that problem for 15 years. And I imagine some here have had it  
for more than 30. I'm a language junkie myself. It's just weird to watch  
these other languages rise and fall after learning Smalltalk.

Il giorno gio, 08/02/2007 alle 21.49 -0800, Blake ha scritto:
> Anyone seen the BlueJ development environment?
>
> It's meant as an aid to teach Java.
>
> I think it's interesting that it works by allowing you to create a live  
> environment of Java objects. A pallid imitation of Smalltalk. (But still  
> kinda cool.)

I seem to recall that the author has declared that he took Smalltalk as
inspiration in creating BlueJ ;)

        Giovanni

On Fri, 09 Feb 2007 02:07:41 -0800, Giovanni Corriga  
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> I seem to recall that the author has declared that he took Smalltalk as
> inspiration in creating BlueJ ;)

That's cool. Cool and sad. :-)

> >I seem to recall that the author has declared that he took Smalltalk as
> >inspiration in creating BlueJ ;)
>
> That's cool. Cool and sad. :-)

     He did.  He was looking for a way to teach objects to
     novices, and he considered but dismissed Smalltalk.
     The reasons were part linguistic, part cultural, and
     part practical.  (If you are interested I can find a
     pointer a paper he wrote explaining the search,
     given at SIGCSE.)

---- Eugene

Il giorno ven, 09/02/2007 alle 20.37 -0600, Eugene Wallingford ha
scritto:
Please do. Addressing his concerns would be good for both the devel team
(for the practical ones) and the pr team (for the linguistics and
cultural ones).

        Giovanni

Quoting Giovanni Corriga <[hidden email]>:
Hi-

This might be the paper: <http://www.bluej.org/papers/1996-03-environment-
paper.pdf>  but see <http://www.bluej.org/about/papers.html> for a list of
papers.  

On page 2 of the above paper, he complains that Smalltalk lacks object-oriented
visualization machanisms, and lacks strong typing, which he claims "makes
impossible the provision of modelling support ... and seems to indicate that
statically typed languages can provide better support for large scale
development of large scale software." !

So, not sure it is really a lack in Smalltalk, but perhaps a failure of
understanding.  

David

> > Please do. Addressing his concerns would be good for both the devel team
> > (for the practical ones) and the pr team (for the linguistics and
> > cultural ones).
> >
> > Giovanni
>
> This might be the paper: <http://www.bluej.org/papers/1996-03-environment-
> paper.pdf>  but see <http://www.bluej.org/about/papers.html> for a list of
> papers.  

     Yes, that's a source of most of the BlueJ papers.  I also
     usually point forlks to two other papers that were published
     at SIGCSE.  This is their "requirements" paper:
          http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/145662.html
     And this is their "proposal" paper:
          http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/158237.html
     These papers explain some of the thinking that led up to
     BlueJ.

---- Eugene