81–90 of 236 posts
Genuinely curious: Is there any industry usage going on for Pharo?
Genuinely curious: Is there any industry usage going on for Pharo?
There is, if you consider it is a Smalltalk dialect. http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/main/ https://gemtalksystems.com/ So you can learn Smalltalk with Pharo and then get into the big boys Smalltalk. However expect the typical enterprise projects where Oracle DB licenses are footnotes on the overall budget.
After reading this line: > Pharo is a pure object-oriented programming language and a powerful environment, focused on simplicity and immediate feedback. and seeing the initial screenshot on the announcement, I thought that this was a joke post. How you can call this "focused on simplicity" while showing that horrific hodge podge of a screen shot is beyond me.
One aspect of simplicity is its minimal syntax... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pharo_syntax_postcard.svg
Detailed changelog: https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-changelogs/blob/maste... Sounds incredible! Git integration and related code management changes are especially nice, 64-bit by default is great and support for binary packages is also important. New, extensible code browser (Calypso) also sounds impressive, but I'll have to see it in action first. Pharo is an incredibly productive environment. Fully inspectab…
GToolkit is also an exciting new development that's happening in parallel with the mainline Pharo. This is a reimagined programming workflow for Smalltalk with new UIs for coding, debugging, documenting, example browsing, testing, etc. Likely the best bits of this environment will be cherry-picked into future Pharo releases, but meanwhile it is available here at https://gtoolkit.com/ and I for one am building an appl…
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…
Development is entirely via the most integrated GUI you've ever experienced. It runs on MacOS, Windows, and Linux. For deployment, you can run it headless. You can also deploy as Javascript for Node/Browsers via a tool called PharoJS ( http://pharojs.org - full disclosure, I'm one of the principals of PharoJS), but it's a work in progress (with a Slack workspace to support it). GNU Smalltalk can deploy to a standard…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I couldn't understand the fascination with the integrated environments though That's one of the key benefits: the environment is an object too. First class IDE knowledge about your objects (Smalltalk pioneered automatic refactorings etc), the ability to modify it as you like, hot code reload, re-startable apps, "live" images to send for debug, etc.
It feels like an alien world moving into the Smalltalk live environments and the patterns I've built up over the years and tools like Vim, etc are indispensable when it comes to moving around and modifying code. Of all the reading I've done on it, the entirety of the language is contained inside images. I know that the Pharo guys have engineered this marvel, and I think it's on the verge of a breakthrough with a lot…
Yes -- it's advanced alien technology. Vim, pfffft!
(Joking of course, but there's no reason a Smalltalk environment could have a Vim-behave-alike editor, but even better, e.g. with semantic knowledge of the code instead of just words and chars).
What is this thing - is it a programming language or an operating system or a desktop environment?
The other half is the environment. It's possible to run Pharo code, e.g., from the command line, but if you do all of your Pharo coding and debugging from a traditional editor+terminal combo, you're missing out on most of the reason to use the environment in the first place.
The environment is 'live' while you code. The objects are live, and the environment itself is an object you can interact with. When you add code, your code executes within that very same environment. There is no separate runtime. The runtime and the codetime are the same. Your code simply gets saved as part of a Pharo 'image' you are editing, and this image can be reloaded and resumed from where you left off.
The most common idiom is to program with a "TDD on steroids" approach. You create a skeleton of a few tests, and start it running. The debugger will stop and tell you the object you are sending Message X doesn't respond to that message. So while the debugger has paused the environment, you add the method with the help of the integrated GUI. Smalltalk (the original Smalltalk) pioneered the use of a 'class browser,' which does what it says on the tin. Pharo includes and extends this concept. Once you've added your method (or even, added the class entire), just hit resume and the (incredible) debugger will take you to the next bit that needs fixed. This is a more powerful edit-and-continue that actually works.
Having said that, while I enjoy playing around with the environment and using it to prototype some class hierarchies, I've had a tough time finding a professional use for it. The very qualities that make it mind-expanding to learn and play with, seem to limit its use "in production," so to speak. Who knows, maybe I'm unique, but I couldn't see myself in a hundred years being able to convince my employer to use it.
But it really is an eye-opening experience to learn. Just like learning LISP pushed my personal boundaries although I don't use LISP at work, similarly Pharo has pushed my boundaries in a way that I highly recommend experiencing.
"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?
It's more than "everything is an object", though. It's "everything is a live object", which is why you need the entire integrated environment with it.
Why would I use this instead of C++ for example
You can find examples of people using Pharo in production (and far more examples of people using other, more industrial-grade Smalltalk dialects), but I personally haven't been able to think of a way to use it on real projects. But that doesn't mean that it isn't worth studying.
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?
Then try these one-liners in the Playground... https://medium.com/concerning-pharo/elegant-pharo-code-bb590....
Then (and I know its a video) but maybe serverless PharoLambda would interest you... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUbd0-FX6pI
