I had an interesting experience, a couple of days ago, I looked at someone's Smalltalk code and understood it! It wasn't until a few moments later that I suddenly realised what had happened. The code is starting to make sense :-)
Emboldened by this discovery, I decided to start thinking about the design of my first 'real' application. It is still really just an experiment, but it is something I want to make work, because I need to compare the development process/effort with that of doing it all in Flex.
So, I have spent the afternoon drawing objects and wondering about what should go where. Although all programming involves this type of thinking, the Smalltalk hierarchy really makes one think in a different way. For example, I have just spent the last 10 minutes comparing Dictionary and SortedCollection; trying to establish which object would be the better container for a list of clients (in the end I have gone with Dictionary because it seems to offer much better access).
The whole experience is a lot like standing in a hardware store looking at various nuts and bolts, trying to work out which to use.
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