Read Me First

A Guide to CS2390 Winter 98

This is going to be an exciting quarter for CS2390!

• For the first time, we'll be using a new form of Smalltalk called Squeak. It's free, runs on anything (including Linux, unlike VisualWorks), lets you create commercial products from it, has a bunch of cool features (sockets, synthesized sound, sound recording on Win and Mac, powerful color graphics primitives), and is a terrific environment for learning about user interfaces. To go along with this, we're using a new book, a classic: Goldberg and Robson's "Smalltalk-80: The Language"
• For the first time, I'll be teaching this class as a serious Smalltalk programmer. For the last six months, I've been moving all of my own research programming onto Squeak. I've got a lot of new ways to look at and think about 2390 from this experience.
• We're trialing a new tool to support object-oriented analysis and design. It's called BOOST, and it's the focus of Noel Rappin's dissertation. Up until midterm, only one of the two classes will be using BOOST, but it will be available to everyone after that.
• We're starting a new technological support for CS2390 that will (hopefully) continue quarter-after-quarter. It's called a CS2390 CoWeb (Collaborative Website), and it's meant to be a place where students can leave things of use to students this quarter and in future quarters.

What do I do first?

1. Wander around this website so that you get an idea of what's where. You don't need to read everything now, but you'll need to know where to get it later if you want.
2. Go to the CS2390 CoWeb and create yourself a homepage there. Again, look around to see what's what.
3. If you want, download Squeak. I've posted directions in the CS2390 CoWeb. If you want all the Smalltalk code for the class in one Tar file, grab src2390.tar.
4. There's a nice intro to Squeak at http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~wolfgang/cosc205/smalltalk1.html. I recommend that you go through it.

What do I do regularly?

To stay informed about the class, I'd:

• Visit the News page here.
• Visit the class newsgroup at news:git.cc.class.2390
• Visit the CS2390 CoWeb recent list at http://guzdial.cc.gatech.edu:8080/cs2390.recent