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Can somebody elaborate on what the bluebook or greenbook is? I tried googling but nothing useful turned up. At least nothing related to programming.

xkriva11 6y ago
http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks/BlueBook/Bluebook.pdf http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks/BlueBook/Bluebook....
Someone 6y ago
https://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/689 https://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/689: The Xerox Parc Colored Books - Blue Book "Smalltalk-80: The language and its implementation"; The original reference - Green Book "Bits of History, Words of advice", Ed. Glenn Krasner. Advice from early implementers - Red Book ""The interactive Programming Environment" Explains the use of development environment, one of the first books about a GUI. (also known as the Orange Book) - Purple Book "Smalltalk 80 - The Language"; more than adequate for an intro, and the portions of the Blue Book that were left out are now available on the Web.
vertex-four 6y ago
The blue book is "Smalltalk-80 - The Language and Implementation", a reference book for Smalltalk. The green book is "Smalltalk-80, Bits of History, Words of Advice", a collection of case studies of Smalltalk implementations on different systems.
jecel 6y ago
In 1978 the Smalltalk group at Xerox tried to build a computer that people could buy. The Notetaker used several 8086 processors in a sewing machine form factor (like the later Osborn I) so you could carry around a computer with floppy disks, a mouse and windows. An executive came from the headquarters specifically to kill the project because Xerox didn't want to sell microcomputers. Frustrated, the group got permission to license the language to run on other people's computers. All the other companies would have to do would be to implement their own version of the virtual machine and the rest of the system would just work. They made a deal with Apple, HP, Tektronix and DEC where these companies would get the language in exchange for having a small team help Xerox clean up the system and the draft of a book about the system by trying to do their own implementations. This was eventually published with the title "Smalltalk-80: The Language and its Implementation" and became known as the blue book since that was the main color on the cover. It had four parts: 1) an explanation about the language and its concepts 2) a reference for all the classes and methods in the system 3) a large example in the form of a discreet event simulator 4) the definition of the virtual machine in the form of explanations and Smalltalk-80 code written in a style that could easily be translated to Pascal or C Years later a version without the fourth part was released with a purple cover. Before the book came out, a series of articles about Smalltalk-80 were published in the August 1981 issue of Byte magazine. Another book was "Smalltalk-80: The Interactive Programming Environment" about the GUI. It became known as the orange book. There was another book that was planned but never released. As part of the efforts of the implementation groups (now 5 since DEC shared its license with Berkeley) they had some mini conferences to share experiences and decided it would be great to make that into a book as well. "Smalltalk-80: Bits of History, Words of Advice" was the result and became known as the green book.
- Rochus 6y ago
  > Before the book came out, a series of articles about Smalltalk-80 were published in the August 1981 issue of Byte magazine. Smalltalk-76 was the first version that mostly (besides "one metaclass per class" and "blocks with arguments") corresponds to what we understand by Smalltalk today. It was developed by Ingalls and published already in 1978, see https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/512760.512762 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/512760.512762. This was the earliest publication about Smalltalk as far as I know.
  - jecel 6y ago
    There was an article in 1975 and two in 1977, but they were about Smalltalk-72 and didn't have too many details. http://www.vpri.org/pdf/hc_ACK_Pisa_1975.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/hc_ACK_Pisa_1975.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/m1977001_dynamedia.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/m1977001_dynamedia.pdf http://dreammachin.es/Kay_SciAm_77.pdf http://dreammachin.es/Kay_SciAm_77.pdf
    - Rochus 6y ago
      Interesting, thanks. Smalltalk-72 was a rather different system, i.e. didn't have much in common with Smalltalk-80 (in contrast with Smalltalk-76 which was almost there). I already have the Smalltalk-72 instruction manual from 1976, but I will gladly read the referenced articles too.

xkriva11 6y ago

http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks/BlueBook/Bluebook.pdf http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks/BlueBook/Bluebook....

Someone 6y ago

https://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/689 https://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/689: The Xerox Parc Colored Books - Blue Book "Smalltalk-80: The language and its implementation"; The original reference - Green Book "Bits of History, Words of advice", Ed. Glenn Krasner. Advice from early implementers - Red Book ""The interactive Programming Environment" Explains the use of development environment, one of the first books about a GUI. (also known as the Orange Book) - Purple Book "Smalltalk 80 - The Language"; more than adequate for an intro, and the portions of the Blue Book that were left out are now available on the Web.

vertex-four 6y ago

The blue book is "Smalltalk-80 - The Language and Implementation", a reference book for Smalltalk. The green book is "Smalltalk-80, Bits of History, Words of Advice", a collection of case studies of Smalltalk implementations on different systems.

jecel 6y ago

In 1978 the Smalltalk group at Xerox tried to build a computer that people could buy. The Notetaker used several 8086 processors in a sewing machine form factor (like the later Osborn I) so you could carry around a computer with floppy disks, a mouse and windows. An executive came from the headquarters specifically to kill the project because Xerox didn't want to sell microcomputers. Frustrated, the group got permission to license the language to run on other people's computers. All the other companies would have to do would be to implement their own version of the virtual machine and the rest of the system would just work. They made a deal with Apple, HP, Tektronix and DEC where these companies would get the language in exchange for having a small team help Xerox clean up the system and the draft of a book about the system by trying to do their own implementations. This was eventually published with the title "Smalltalk-80: The Language and its Implementation" and became known as the blue book since that was the main color on the cover. It had four parts: 1) an explanation about the language and its concepts 2) a reference for all the classes and methods in the system 3) a large example in the form of a discreet event simulator 4) the definition of the virtual machine in the form of explanations and Smalltalk-80 code written in a style that could easily be translated to Pascal or C Years later a version without the fourth part was released with a purple cover. Before the book came out, a series of articles about Smalltalk-80 were published in the August 1981 issue of Byte magazine. Another book was "Smalltalk-80: The Interactive Programming Environment" about the GUI. It became known as the orange book. There was another book that was planned but never released. As part of the efforts of the implementation groups (now 5 since DEC shared its license with Berkeley) they had some mini conferences to share experiences and decided it would be great to make that into a book as well. "Smalltalk-80: Bits of History, Words of Advice" was the result and became known as the green book.

Rochus 6y ago
> Before the book came out, a series of articles about Smalltalk-80 were published in the August 1981 issue of Byte magazine. Smalltalk-76 was the first version that mostly (besides "one metaclass per class" and "blocks with arguments") corresponds to what we understand by Smalltalk today. It was developed by Ingalls and published already in 1978, see https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/512760.512762 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/512760.512762. This was the earliest publication about Smalltalk as far as I know.
- jecel 6y ago
  There was an article in 1975 and two in 1977, but they were about Smalltalk-72 and didn't have too many details. http://www.vpri.org/pdf/hc_ACK_Pisa_1975.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/hc_ACK_Pisa_1975.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/m1977001_dynamedia.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/m1977001_dynamedia.pdf http://dreammachin.es/Kay_SciAm_77.pdf http://dreammachin.es/Kay_SciAm_77.pdf
  - Rochus 6y ago
    Interesting, thanks. Smalltalk-72 was a rather different system, i.e. didn't have much in common with Smalltalk-80 (in contrast with Smalltalk-76 which was almost there). I already have the Smalltalk-72 instruction manual from 1976, but I will gladly read the referenced articles too.