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Pharo, the Modern Smalltalk

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Re: Pharo, the Modern Smalltalk

#91

Post by zerr »

otakucode wrote: post #26
edmundhuber wrote: post #5

Is there a snippet of example code to look at? I browsed the pharo.org website, but couldn't find an example to give me a taste. I even tried googling "pharo example" and with a brief look at the results didn't find an example. Today, there are hundreds of programming languages competing for attention. It is in your interest to put an example front and center of why one should spend time looking into yet another prog…

I've always found the 'image' environment to be far more interesting than the language of Smalltalk itself. If you do find just code snippets, you're missing out on what I, at least, see as the most significant feature of the whole thing. The way it goes about defining the code is clunky, but the overall structure of 'images' and the workflow involved with them is fascinating. I could easily see something similar bei…

Opposite feeling here - mutable/persistent images kept me away from Smalltalk.

Re: Pharo, the Modern Smalltalk

#92

Post by throwaway7645 »

jhbadger wrote: post #33
otakucode wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always found the 'image' environment to be far more interesting than the language of Smalltalk itself. If you do find just code snippets, you're missing out on what I, at least, see as the most significant feature of the whole thing. The way it goes about defining the code is clunky, but the overall structure of 'images' and the workflow involved with them is fascinating. I could easily see something similar bei…

Lots of other languages work/worked that way. System images were a common feature of many Lisp systems and some Forth systems in the 1980s.

The image is just one reason why compiling an SBCL executable results in such a large file. It has state as well...or so I've read.

Re: Pharo, the Modern Smalltalk

#93

Post by astrobe_ »

tom_mellior wrote: post #67
igouy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no excuse for not having any examples of a programming language… https://pharo.org/ I see examples on their home page.

There is an image showing many IDE windows, one of which does actually show code you would find if you already knew what the code you were looking for looked like. You could still not copy and paste it. Then there is a textual example consisting of two lines of Posix shell, embedded in which is indeed a tiny Pharo program in a string. The parent's point mostly stands. (Oh, and there is a frickin' popup for a frickin'…

1. Where would you copy/paste it anyway? In a Pharo image of course,

2. Image that you can download (30Mb) and test easily. The installation consists in unzipping the damn thing, that's all you need to run Pharo right away. If you don't like it, you delete the folder. That's the un-install procedure.

3. If you actually do test it for yourself, you'll find plenty of examples in the image itself, ready to copy/paste... OR NOT! Because actually, most of the times you don't even have to copy/paste; you can just select, right click and execute those examples.

The article might be a little too dithyrambic, but your criticism on this particular point shows more your own laziness than anything. Where is the adventurous programmer that bravely goes off the beaten tracks in order to discover new exciting things?

Re: Pharo, the Modern Smalltalk

#94

Post by throwaway7645 »

z3t4 wrote: post #11

They need to work on the presentation. How do you get started ? How does the code look like ? etc. Not just "download this program and buy this book"

There is a profStef tutorial once you load the image. I think you just need to send "go" to the object.

Something like:

ProfStef go.

And right-click do after highlighting. Stefan Decasse is a French professor that does a lot for the project.

Re: Pharo, the Modern Smalltalk

#95

Post by throwaway7645 »

carlosgg wrote: post #45
vesak wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly, I'm more fascinated that I'll be able to learn French reading through the materials of that course. Perhaps Smalltalk will follow on the side :)

The course is bilingual.

I could never get the posted English vids to work

Re: Pharo, the Modern Smalltalk

#96

Post by TeddyDD »

otakucode wrote: post #26
edmundhuber wrote: post #5

Is there a snippet of example code to look at? I browsed the pharo.org website, but couldn't find an example to give me a taste. I even tried googling "pharo example" and with a brief look at the results didn't find an example. Today, there are hundreds of programming languages competing for attention. It is in your interest to put an example front and center of why one should spend time looking into yet another prog…

I've always found the 'image' environment to be far more interesting than the language of Smalltalk itself. If you do find just code snippets, you're missing out on what I, at least, see as the most significant feature of the whole thing. The way it goes about defining the code is clunky, but the overall structure of 'images' and the workflow involved with them is fascinating. I could easily see something similar bei…

I fell opposite: I appreciate simplicity of Smalltalk syntax, but I prefer environment bases of files

Re: Pharo, the Modern Smalltalk

#97

Post by EdwardCoffin »

ihumanable wrote: post #81
EdwardCoffin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want to perhaps point to a specific time in that video, and compare it to a non-Smalltalk environment in a way that makes this purported isolation apparent, because I don't see what you mean. I don't recognize whatever operating system the demo was done on, so if the Pharo system is not using native widgets I would not know, you'll have to explicitly state if this is the case.

The presenter is in the host operating system (Mac OSX) until the Pharo image is "up and running" at the 0:40 mark. Everything until the presenter opens up debian at 5:00 is custom Pharo based desktop / window management / even the mouse cursor if you look closely.

Then this just means that Pharo is one of the Smalltalks that does its own window management. I think Squeak might be the same. It is not a general characteristic of Smalltalks though, and certainly is not part of their essential nature. As I said, IBM Smalltalk used native widgets and windows, and had good interaction with the rest of the operating system.

I don't think you can draw a general conclusion about Smalltalk from a specific example, especially like this one.

Re: Pharo, the Modern Smalltalk

#98

Post by e12e »

bertfreudenberg wrote: post #90
vvdcect wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [running program] + [auto persistence] + [editing tools] How do you use TDD when coding like this?

Kent Beck invented TDD while programming in Smalltalk. You first extend the environment with tests, then add the code to make them green. All without ever having to restart the "program".

I admit the question made me smile, but it's a great question. I found these short videos, that are maybe the shortest possible answer (less than 3 minutes, I just watched them w/o sound, auto-captioned):

Pharo: https://youtu.be/ymITEeAOtEA

Cinecom Smalltalk: https://youtu.be/mXoxfmcDDJM

Re: Pharo, the Modern Smalltalk

#99

Post by e12e »

lucozade wrote: post #89
gnaritas wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smalltalk is not "yet another programming language"; Smalltalk is the language all those other OO programming languages copied. You should look into it because it is the source of the object oriented paradigm and it'll make you a better OO programmer in all of those other languages.

Sorry to be that guy but a lot of what we've come to know as OO is more directly descended from Simula because that was a big inspiration for Bjarne. As such, C++, Java and C#, which constitute a significant chunk of OO programming, are probably better thought of as descended from Simula (and C). There's a clearer lineage to the likes of Ruby and Objective-C, and to a lesser extent Javascript and Python. I would defi…

> what we've come to know as OO is more directly descended from Simula

True, what is often called object oriented is often more about classes and inheritance, and less about (instantiated) objects communicating via messages.

It's really rather odd how Smalltalk, Strongtalk and Self could be major influences behind the jvm, jre and java - when you look at were java ended up...

[ed: on the other hand if you start with Self and add Algol syntax you get javascript - maybe it makes sense that Strongtalk and Algol makes java...]

Re: Pharo, the Modern Smalltalk

#100

Post by spc476 »

shalabhc wrote: post #76
edmundhuber wrote: post #5

Is there a snippet of example code to look at? I browsed the pharo.org website, but couldn't find an example to give me a taste. I even tried googling "pharo example" and with a brief look at the results didn't find an example. Today, there are hundreds of programming languages competing for attention. It is in your interest to put an example front and center of why one should spend time looking into yet another prog…

This may not be immediately apparent, but I discovered that Smalltalk did not fit into the 'programming language' concepts in my head. I think of a typical bytecode VM language as [source code] -> [interpreter] -> [running program] Instead Smalltalk is more like [running program] + [auto persistence] + [editing tools] So you don't modify large gobs of source code files, you modify the running program from within - ak…

So, how do you distribute the program you've just written? That's the issue I have with image based languages.
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