Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!bigsur!bigsur!andrzej
From: andrzej@bigsur.UUCP (Andrzej Bieszczad)
Subject: Re: novice question about Smalltalk books
Message-ID: <1991Mar8.164812.19492@bigsur.uucp>
Sender: news@bigsur.uucp
Reply-To: andrzej@bigsur.UUCP (Andrzej Bieszczad)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
References:  <27324@netcom.COM>
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 91 16:48:12 GMT

In article <27324@netcom.COM>, rcb@netcom.COM (Roy Bixler) writes:
|> 
|> I'm trying to learn Samlltalk, because I was told that it is the only
|> 'truly object oriented language out there'.  I picked up a copy of GNU
|> Smalltalk, went to the local computer bookstore and bought a book with
|> a purple cover (the Purple book, I assume) called 'SMALLTALK-80 the
|> language', by Adele Goldberg and David Robson.  After digging into the
|> GNU Smalltalk documentation, I found a comment which implied that the
|> above Purple book should be avoided and to use the Blue book instead.
|> Before I return the Purple book, can anyone tell me what's the
|> advantage of using the Blue book?  Maybe a better question - is the
|> Purple book worth keeping if I buy the Blue book?
|> 
|> Thanks for any enlightenment.  (I hope this topic hasn't been beaten
|> to death recently.)
|> 
|> Roy Bixler
|> rcb@netcom.com -or- (UUCP) uunet!apple!netcom!rcb

I recommend that you do not buy any of them.

Instead invest in two volume "Inside Samlltalk" written by two
experts: Lalonde and Pugh (check Journal Of Object Oriented Programming
for details on these guys). If you join the Library of Computer
and Information Sciences, you will get both books for about $60, which
is an excellent deal. "Inside Smalltalk" is the best book on Smalltalk
I have seen. However, be warned, it does not cover release 4 (it covers
all 2.x, up to 2.5). There is no other book which would cover release 4
anyhow.

-- 
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Andrzej Bieszczad                     | Phone:  (613) 763-2259
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