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Pharo 7.0 released

pharo.org

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Re: Pharo 7.0 released

#41
A few years back Pharo's predecessor/sibling Squeak was garnering some interest due to its "Seaside" web framework, which used continuations and so made some interactions easier to program.

But after the rise of JavaScript, this became a lot less important.

Re: Pharo 7.0 released

#43

Where does the Pharo runtime run? To which platforms can I bring its solutions? are these standalone binaries or can I create libraries or code which play well with other languages and systems? Every time I look at a programming language, and at the HN it is every second day, I think about what kind of problems can it solve, and for what kind of platforms these compile/run their runtimes.. and surprisingly not many p…

> Where does the Pharo runtime run?

Pharo runs in a VM that's compiled to C and runs as a stand-alone native application on Linux, Mac, Windows. You can also build from source but most people don't and there are some rough edges. There are plenty of libraries and mechanisms for connecting to the rest of the world e.g. subprocesses, sockets, FFI, and libraries built on those.

My favourite computer science paper of all time is about how they develop this virtual machine. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12577087

Re: Pharo 7.0 released

#44

Where does the Pharo runtime run? To which platforms can I bring its solutions? are these standalone binaries or can I create libraries or code which play well with other languages and systems? Every time I look at a programming language, and at the HN it is every second day, I think about what kind of problems can it solve, and for what kind of platforms these compile/run their runtimes.. and surprisingly not many p…

Why the downvotes? is there anything wrong in my question? I read the webpage and the answer is nowhere (at least I could not find it), and looking at the docs is not so easy to find this information, it seems that I have to get deep in a chapter of a book or a video in order to find out whether this tool has anything to do with my work, tool or area at all. Does it compile to other platforms? Binary code, compile to…

> Why the downvotes?

Please don't complain about downvotes, especially not within the first 23 minutes. It's common to receive one random downvote and a couple more piling on, but given a few hours a decent comment will be back in the black.

Re: Pharo 7.0 released

#45

Where does the Pharo runtime run? To which platforms can I bring its solutions? are these standalone binaries or can I create libraries or code which play well with other languages and systems? Every time I look at a programming language, and at the HN it is every second day, I think about what kind of problems can it solve, and for what kind of platforms these compile/run their runtimes.. and surprisingly not many p…

I looked for any useful documentation for a few minutes and just gave up. I don't want to read a book. I don't want to watch a video. This is not my first programming language, thank you. I just want a "hello world" example to get an idea what I am actually dealing with. How do I run a "hello world" program from the command line? How can I deploy that to another machine that doesn't necessarily have a GUI?

You don't. Smalltalk means GUI, pretty much.

Re: Pharo 7.0 released

#46
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You certainly can use Pharo with normal tools. You just write (and version, and whatever else) your code normally in files, then you "file in", or load, those in Pharo. You'd need ~3 lines of a wrapper if you don't want to do it manually. I share your concerns, actually - the truth is, the code editing part of Pharo is its least compelling feature and just cannot compare to my Emacs setup with years of tweaking behin…

Considering how many editors have Vim emulators now, it's a little surprising nobody's done it for smalltalk yet.

I've yet to use a Vim emulator that worked as well as Vim though. The amount of features in it are mind boggling and replicating that would be the work of a large fully funded team.

Re: Pharo 7.0 released

#47

Where does the Pharo runtime run? To which platforms can I bring its solutions? are these standalone binaries or can I create libraries or code which play well with other languages and systems? Every time I look at a programming language, and at the HN it is every second day, I think about what kind of problems can it solve, and for what kind of platforms these compile/run their runtimes.. and surprisingly not many p…

I looked for any useful documentation for a few minutes and just gave up. I don't want to read a book. I don't want to watch a video. This is not my first programming language, thank you. I just want a "hello world" example to get an idea what I am actually dealing with. How do I run a "hello world" program from the command line? How can I deploy that to another machine that doesn't necessarily have a GUI?

> I just want a "hello world" example to get an idea what I am actually dealing with. How do I run a "hello world" program from the command line?

The trouble is that what you are dealing with is a graphical interactive programming environment. Sure, you can run it from the command line like /bin/perl, but to understand what you are dealing with you have to open it up and try it on its own terms.

If you aren't interested in a novel immersive programming environment then you can safely ignore Pharo too.

Re: Pharo 7.0 released

#48

Where does the Pharo runtime run? To which platforms can I bring its solutions? are these standalone binaries or can I create libraries or code which play well with other languages and systems? Every time I look at a programming language, and at the HN it is every second day, I think about what kind of problems can it solve, and for what kind of platforms these compile/run their runtimes.. and surprisingly not many p…

I looked for any useful documentation for a few minutes and just gave up. I don't want to read a book. I don't want to watch a video. This is not my first programming language, thank you. I just want a "hello world" example to get an idea what I am actually dealing with. How do I run a "hello world" program from the command line? How can I deploy that to another machine that doesn't necessarily have a GUI?

There's literally a command-line example (although it doesn't print Hello world, but the factorial of 42) on their front page.

That said, Smalltalk isn't something you use from the commandline typically, or only during deployment or for applying external automation. The GUI environment is fairly key.

Re: Pharo 7.0 released

#49

"Everything's an object" is object oriented programming done right and I can see why Ruby and other languages used those ideas from Smalltalk. I couldn't understand the fascination with the integrated environments though. It was my biggest stumbling block. Is there a pathway to use Pharo with my traditional tools?

You certainly can use Pharo with normal tools. You just write (and version, and whatever else) your code normally in files, then you "file in", or load, those in Pharo. You'd need ~3 lines of a wrapper if you don't want to do it manually. I share your concerns, actually - the truth is, the code editing part of Pharo is its least compelling feature and just cannot compare to my Emacs setup with years of tweaking behin…

The small size of methods is a feature, not a bug :-).

And this partly explains why the lack of [your favourite editor] bindings isn't so important. You don't typically spend as much time as you're used to typing in code - and make progress faster as a result - counter-intuitive as that may sound. The integration and the debugger are most of the reason why.

Re: Pharo 7.0 released

#50

Where does the Pharo runtime run? To which platforms can I bring its solutions? are these standalone binaries or can I create libraries or code which play well with other languages and systems? Every time I look at a programming language, and at the HN it is every second day, I think about what kind of problems can it solve, and for what kind of platforms these compile/run their runtimes.. and surprisingly not many p…

I looked for any useful documentation for a few minutes and just gave up. I don't want to read a book. I don't want to watch a video. This is not my first programming language, thank you. I just want a "hello world" example to get an idea what I am actually dealing with. How do I run a "hello world" program from the command line? How can I deploy that to another machine that doesn't necessarily have a GUI?

I'm not sure about deployment but the 'hello world' is essentially part of the environment:

https://i.imgur.com/JwgJ66z.png

You create a new image and then start piecing things together from there. GNU Smalltalk is probably what you want if you want to stick to the CLI. That said, it's not exactly a representative example when you want the same program that prints to stdout or something.

I'm curious to know about this aspect of it because my first step after the hello world is usually to figure out how to host the thing.

Edit: this would be more useful: https://stackoverflow.com/a/17259369

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