> Some of the faculty panned it because they claimed
>the I/O features were either poor or nonexistent.
That is a silly argument. Squeak or Pharo don't have
really high-performance I/O, but that can hardly be
an argument for an introduction to OOP course.
Both provide more than enough features, and better
ones than java, to do the kind of i/o typically done
in such a course.
Some better arguments against are:
- the user interface is not really consistent,
and in the case of Pharo not yet stable;
- deep down there are monsters, classes
that are way too large and not well refactored.
- creating native user interfaces is difficult.
I'm not sure the first argument is really
important, as every IDE is going to provide
conceptual difficulties for a beginner anyway.
One could anticipate on the second argument,
use it for an assignment (describe three
responsibilities of the Morph class), and
talk a bit on refactoring.
And user interfaces could be web-based
in Seaside.
Stephan Eggermont
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