Powerful Ideas

14 March, 2013

Casey mentioned:

Speaking of Pythagoras, Alan Kay demos a visual proof for the theorem that’s super easy for just about anyone to understand right away using Etoys in his TED talk, which is worth a look:

Bert posted a youtube video as a response to a newbie question:

For her third language she chose Squeak, since she knew that Scratch was written in it. I would like to have her write the “Hello Pythagoras” program using Morphic objects, in a visually appealing way. So far I have had some trouble finding a tutorial that covers relevant information. I am sure I can figure this out by poking around long enough but if anyone has a pointer to documentation that might help, or a similar example, that would be great and much appreciated

Here is Bert’s terrific answer!

Chris Cunnington reminded the Squeak-dev mailing list that for a while now he’s been creating video tutorials explaining aspects of Squeak. In fact he’s been working at this for so long that he now has over 70 videos available!

The videos give snappy introductions to topics as varied as: using SqueakSource to download Squeak applications; the mysteries of the red, blue, and yellow mouse buttons; how to use morphs; and using Croquet to interact in 3D environments (as seen above).

If you want to learn about Squeak, or to find out more about Squeak applications you’ve never used before, these are a great resource, so head over to Chris’ Smalltalk Medicine Show channel on YouTube. If you know of other great videos for newcomers to Squeak and Smalltalk, please let us know in the comments.

Hernan Wilkinson wrote to the squeak -dev mailing list that the Smalltalks 2009 presentations are available now at the Smalltalks Conference siteĀ under the “Talks” tab. Given that the speakers included such well-known figures as Dan Ingalls, Stephane Ducasse, Alex Warth, Tim Mackinnon, James Foster and Travis Griggs, there should be some fascinating viewing to be had.

Hernan added: “You can watch also the video used during the presentation that summarizes the previous two years of the conference, it is a very nice video. It is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekRhvg7W6AQ“.

There are also links to other videos and pictures from the conference home page.