Smalltalk/X Introduction & Tutorial

This document is being prepared - it is not complete.

Contents

• Introduction
• Different Smalltalks and the Validity of this Tutorial
• Books on Smalltalk

• Getting Started
  • Saving a Snapshot Image
  • Applying Patches
  • Opening a Workspace
  • Leaving the Debugger

• Hello World in 5 Minutes

• Smalltalk Basics
  • Definitions, Nomenclature & Concepts
  • Language Syntax
    • Comments
    • Literals
    • Identifiers
    • Messages
      • Unary Messages
      • keyword Messages
      • Binary Messages
      • "Strange" Binary Messages
    • Variables
    • Assigning a Value to a Variable
    • Cascade Expression
    • Blocks
      • Conditional Evaluation (if)
      • Conditional Looping (while)
      • Looping over Elements of a Collection (Enumerating)
      • Looping over a Range of Numbers
    • Syntactic Sugar
      • Brace-Array-Constructor
      • Strings with Sliced in Expressions

• Playing with Objects
  • Drawing with a Pen
  • Looking into our Pen (Inspecting)
  • Browsing Pens protocol
  • Adding a new Method to the Pen Class

• Defining new Classes
  • Creating an Instance of a Class
  • Defining Methods
    • Inherited Protocol
    • Adding access Protocol
    • Returning a Value from a Method
    • Redefining the "printOn:" Method
    • Changing a Method
    • Adding more Instance Variables
  • Redefining the Class Protocol

• Creating a Web Application
  • Starting a WebServer
  • Creating a New WebApplication Class
  • Changing the Response
  • Adding Sub-Page Responses
  • Easier HTML Generation
  • Session Control (to be written)
  • Cookies (to be written)
  • Temporary Links (to be written)
  • Higher Level Frameworks (to be written)
    • STT (to be written)
    • Swazoo (to be written)
    • Seaside (to be written)
  • Existing Services (to be written)
    • File Service (to be written)
    • CGI Service (to be written)

• Creating a GUI Application
  • Creating a New Application Class
  • Generating the Initial Application Code
  • Modifying the Application's Menu
  • Modifying the Application's Window

• Recovering from a Crash
• Deploying an Application
• Sharing your Work with Others

• More Smalltalk
  • Other Variable Types
  • Contexts

• Tips & Tricks for Editing Text

Introduction

The tutorial is meant for those who have never worked with a Smalltalk system before - if you have, you may skip this document.

Notice that although these texts are available on the web and can be viewed with a regular webBrowser (Mozilla, Opera etc.) they are interactive documents containing executable code for execution within the ST/X help-browser.
Interactive examples, buttons, automatic opening of example windows as present in the texts can only be executed if this text is viewed with the ST/X help system.

If you are reading this via the internet in a regular web browser, we highly recommend that you download the Smalltalk/X package and read these documents there (it's much more fun if you click on a coding examample, and the underlying code is executed).

Different Smalltalks and the Validity of this Tutorial

Also, the set of available tools and the "way programs are made" is very similar among all Smalltalk systems, and also very different to the way things work in almost every other language system and IDE. The single most striking difference is, that you develop, execute and debug your program WITHIN the IDE itself. As you add new code and functionality, this immediately becomes part of your working environment and is immediately usable. There is no separate executable. The new code lives in the same object-space as all the basic classes, the compiler, the widgets and even the pieces which make up the IDE itself. If your program needs text-edit capabilities, simply instantiate a TextEditor; if it needs to generate and compile a piece of Smalltalk-code, simply call for the compiler. Even a debugger or browser can be opened via a simple message send. They are all there for you to be used. On the other hand, this also makes it very easy to extend, fix or adapt the IDE itself according to your needs.

If you know one Smalltalk, you will, with a high probability be able to use the others in relatively short time, because they share the same basic "philosophy".

Therefore, give it a try and don't worry - it's worth learning it, you will get so much insight into the OO-world, that even if you will not use Smalltalk at work, it will give a lot of inspiration, ideas and after all, pure fun.

It has never been easier to simply try out an idea than in Smalltalk !

Books on Smalltalk

Copyright © 1996-2009 Claus Gittinger Development & Consulting
Copyright © 1997-2009 eXept Software AG