The Knowledge You Need

Each section adds new capabilities to a short, yet representative Smalltalk program. One such program displays the calorie content of a food selected by a button click.

As you see the program evolve, you learn how to experiment using the workspace and the transcript, benefit from procedure abstraction, define classes that inherit instance variables and methods, benefit from data abstraction, design classes and class hierarchies, store values in class variables, store values in dictionaries, work with arrays and collections, use time-sorted collections in simulations, work with dates and times, program defensively, exchange software, create points and rectangles, draw lines and display text in windows, connect display elements, display list boxes, menus, and file dialog windows, develop a graphical user interface using a GUI builder, work with an industrial-strength smalltalk, work with the model-viewer-controler paradigm, and much, much more.

• Based on extensive teaching experience
• Features easily digested segments
• Illustrates ideas via short, yet complete, programs
• Answers your natural questions in a natural order
• Stresses principles of good programming practice
• Recapitulates key points as if--then rules