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From: klimas@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Re: novice question about Smalltalk books
Message-ID: <3764.27dcdeca@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com>
Date: 12 Mar 91 18:59:38 GMT
References: <27324@netcom.COM>
Lines: 24

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?
	The "Blue Book" is the original book, and is no longer in print.  It
	has been replaced by the purple book which is identical except for the
	lack of the section on how the ST-80 Smalltalk virtual machine works.
	Depending upon who you talk to, you get two different reasons why the
	the section on the virtual machine was dropped from the new purple
	book.  The two most plausible answers are 
		1.)The current virtual machine in ST-80/Arrival is dramatically
		different than was described in the Blue Book and hence the
		information was obsolete.

		2.)There was too much information on how to build virtual
		machines and ParcPlace was concerned about even more
		competitors.