I would like to thank all of you who read parts and drafts of this book and provided feedback.
It is not an easy task to read a work in progress, and I am grateful to all of you who made the
effort. I will not attempt to list all your names here, because I am sure to forget some of you.
However, I must mention Orla Greevy, Ian Prince, and Daniel Knierim, who read the entire
manuscript. Thank you for your feedback and support. I would also like particularly to mention
Daniel Villain, who read a draft of the French version.
I want to thank the Squeak community for the help they have provided me during the
development of the environments used in this book, and for developing the amazing Squeak
environment in the first place. In particular, I would like to thank Nathanael Schärli and
Ned Konz for their help. I offer special thanks to all the developers who helped Smalltalk to
escape from the clouds of dreamland and become a reality. I would also like to thank all the
“Smalltalkers” who made this language and community so exciting. May you continue to
make your dreams come true.
Writing this book has been a long and difficult process, because teaching novices is difficult.
Moreover, I am not an easy person to live with, and as a researcher, I become excited by
too many topics. I want to thank Didier Besset particularly for many fruitful discussions at the
beginning of this project.
I also want to thank my wife, Florence, and my sons Quentin and Thibaut, two small boys
who loved to run noisily around my desk when I was trying to concentrate on my work. Thank
you for accepting a husband and father who was not always present, enthusiastic, and accessible.
But soon we will be programming together.