Art and Science of Smalltalk, The

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Summary: history of smalltalk systems
Review: history of smalltalk system

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Summary: All the complexities of Smalltalk amazingly simplified!
Review: Simon Lewis's book "The Art and Science of Smalltalk" has to be one of the best books on Smalltalk programming I have ever read. After spending months reading many other books on the subject and still not getting a clear, concise description of some important Smalltalk constructs, I could not believe how incredibly readable this book was. Lewis has managed to explain in a few pages what took other authors multiple chapters.

In addition, diagrams and figures are only used when they will actually help the reader to understand a concept. Unlike other texts references to figures and diagrams occur in close proximity to them rather than twenty pages before or after.

The book is divided into two parts which address different but equally important aspects of programming in Smalltalk. The first section deals with the "science" of Smalltak and covers the development environment, class library, and dependency mechanisms (Model-View-Controller Architecture). The second section gives sage advice on the "art" of Smalltalk. This includes sections on how to best utilize Smalltalk in an environment of extensive reuse, management of Smalltalk projects, and debugging techniques.

I would rate this book as a must have for Smalltalk programmers at any level. If I were to teach a course in Smalltalk this book would be required. Lewis should be commended for his command of the Smalltalk language and his eloquence in explaining it to others.