GNU Smalltalk API?

Question

I have recently been learning Smalltalk, mainly by going through the tutorial at gnu.org.

While it has been really helpful and I have learned a lot, I would really like an extensive smalltalk API where I could view all of the built in objects and which messages they can receive, and what they will do with those messages.

The manual has a list of all of the built in objects, but doesn't really explain anything about them. Some are obvious, like an Array, but I still don't know what all the messages are an Array understands.

There is a link to a 'class reference' here, which is generated by Smalltalk, but the link is broken. I was wondering if anyone knows of something like this hosted elsewhere, or could point me towards a similar resource.

Answer 1

The correct links:

http://www.gnu.org/software/smalltalk/manual-base/

http://www.gnu.org/software/smalltalk/manual-libs/

Answer 2

Learning Smalltalk is a lot easier in an image-based system like Pharo or Squeak. They have code browsers and inspectors.

Answer 3

You will learn about the API by browsing the code, either from the image or from other projects.

What I think you will still need, though, more than the API, is a tutorial that gives a feel for the language and how to think in Smalltalk. For me it was Alec Sharp's Smalltalk by Example, which is freely dowloadable from Stéphane Ducasse's list of free Smalltalk books.