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Pharo 4.0 Released

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Re: Pharo 4.0 Released

#31

Post by kilon »

reymus wrote: post #29
kilon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if you don't understand "an IDE , OS rolled into one" then you don't understand what Smalltalk is anyway. Its not easy to explain what Pharo is , the same way its not easy to explain what Emacs is , etc. There are may ideas and workflow integrated into it and its development workflow is radically different to normal programming languages. "Does it compile to executables" No it does not , but there is no need.…

> then you don't understand what Smalltalk is anyway Sorry, but I think that is just wrong. As far as I know, Pharo is one of the best and more approachable alternatives to enter the Smalltalk world. They should be doing a better job at welcoming people to "their world". If they want people to just come already knowing what they are going to get, I don't see how are they going to go mainstream, ever (assuming they wo…

My personal opinion on this and no way the opinion of core Pharo devs, I am just a newcomer to Pharo and a minor contributor.

Mainstream will kill Pharo in an instant. Pharo is too cool and too well designed for mainstream. Pharo also is going towards a complete opposite direction of sacrificing features over ease of usage.

So in the end Pharo is not designed for the mainstream developer its designed for the developer that looks for something radical diffirent.

But diffirence comes with a cost, it means that you get out your comfort zone, explaining basic concepts takes much more time and effort because of lack of familiarity etc etc.

So if you dont understand Pharo at first try, thats not a bug thats a feature. If you do understand Pharo at second try that's a bug.

Some people refer to pharo as "the red pill" of coding, taking the red pill has its advantages but also significant disadvantages. The choice in the end is yours.

Sure documentation and website can be improved but it wont solve the problem that Pharo is outside mainstream way of doing coding because this is what makes Pharo so fun to work with :)

Re: Pharo 4.0 Released

#32

Post by kilon »

reymus wrote: post #30
kilon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should not forget Pharo IS a fork of Squeak, it goes to a very different direction but is based on the same code. GUI wise Pharo inherited its GUI API, Morphic from Squeak. My personal opinions is that native look interfaces are dead. Nowdays most apps use custom look especially web applications. Native looks apps look boring. Users don't like boring applications. At least I dont :) The GUI in Pharo is not ideal b…

I disagree, native looking applications, while "boring", at least feel natural. Every time I use an application with custom controls (which almost always look pillowy) I feel like it wasn't made by a professional, it tends to respond different and it just doesn't feel right. I have read again and again criticism against Java and how it "failed" in the desktop because every time you used a Java application, it looked…

I am not going to debate your personal taste, its your right to want "native looking" interfaces.

There has been a project to bring native interfaces to pharo called Mars

https://marsonpharo.wordpress.com/

but after the student left none took the project further. So yes its possible but for now there zero interest for it in pharo community.

Re: Pharo 4.0 Released

#33

Post by estebanlor »

kilon wrote: post #32
reymus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, native looking applications, while "boring", at least feel natural. Every time I use an application with custom controls (which almost always look pillowy) I feel like it wasn't made by a professional, it tends to respond different and it just doesn't feel right. I have read again and again criticism against Java and how it "failed" in the desktop because every time you used a Java application, it looked…

I am not going to debate your personal taste, its your right to want "native looking" interfaces. There has been a project to bring native interfaces to pharo called Mars https://marsonpharo.wordpress.com/ but after the student left none took the project further. So yes its possible but for now there zero interest for it in pharo community.

I myself also would prefer native windows, and I time to time continue working on Mars... but is a side project nobody has actually expressed interest, so I usually spend my time in other, more required, stuff. But... Mars was loading in Pharo 4.0, and even if very incomplete, is usable for them who want to give it a try and finish it (also people showing interest could help me to get motivation :) )

Re: Pharo 4.0 Released

#34

Post by fstephany »

schemezealot wrote: post #19
StevePerkins wrote: post #16

Not having heard of Pharo before 10 minutes ago, I wish this website did a better job of explaining what it is. "... an object-oriented programming language and a powerful environment... (think IDE and OS rolled into one)" An IDE and OS rolled into one? What does that even mean? I had to go to Wikipedia to learn that this is basically a modern Smalltalk implementation. So why not just say that on the main page? I onc…

"Does it compile to executables, or does it require an interpreter or VM at runtime?" It looks like they are still using (since 2010) the COG VM, which is a fast jitting VM, but I think they have others in works to replace/improve it.

They hesitate to include "Spur", a new memory manager in the VM. Check Clement Bera's blog post for more: https://clementbera.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/7-points-summar...

This is the first step towards a 64bits VM (yay!)

Re: Pharo 4.0 Released

#35

Post by fstephany »

reymus wrote: post #30
kilon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should not forget Pharo IS a fork of Squeak, it goes to a very different direction but is based on the same code. GUI wise Pharo inherited its GUI API, Morphic from Squeak. My personal opinions is that native look interfaces are dead. Nowdays most apps use custom look especially web applications. Native looks apps look boring. Users don't like boring applications. At least I dont :) The GUI in Pharo is not ideal b…

I disagree, native looking applications, while "boring", at least feel natural. Every time I use an application with custom controls (which almost always look pillowy) I feel like it wasn't made by a professional, it tends to respond different and it just doesn't feel right. I have read again and again criticism against Java and how it "failed" in the desktop because every time you used a Java application, it looked…

Right, a lot of Smalltalker would love native windows. It's a requirement for some companies as well.

Edit: not only for the look but also for the feel. I hate when my usual keyboard shortcuts do something different in Pharo than in my OS.

Re: Pharo 4.0 Released

#37

Post by agentultra »

Awesome work!

I gave Pharo a test drive a few months ago and was pleasantly surprised when I had a little window with a table listing out all of the links and titles on the front page of HN in an afternoon.

I really enjoyed the experience of "filling in the blanks," style programming that it introduced to me. I just started by instantiating an object and calling the entry point method... and landed in the debugger. But I was able to fill in the missing methods and data-structures until it finally came out of the debugger and I had a working application.

Can't wait to check out the release notes. I highly recommend spending an afternoon with it just to see what can be done.

Re: Pharo 4.0 Released

#38

Post by mbrock »

lispm wrote: post #7

It still has a strange non-native user interface. Why would I want another window system in a window in 2015?

I still use Emacs in 2015, and Emacs is, basically, a strange non-native window system in a window. Smalltalk/Pharo is the same kind of thing, except less terminal-oriented—no?

Re: Pharo 4.0 Released

#39

Post by detaro »

kilon wrote: post #22
StevePerkins wrote: post #16

Not having heard of Pharo before 10 minutes ago, I wish this website did a better job of explaining what it is. "... an object-oriented programming language and a powerful environment... (think IDE and OS rolled into one)" An IDE and OS rolled into one? What does that even mean? I had to go to Wikipedia to learn that this is basically a modern Smalltalk implementation. So why not just say that on the main page? I onc…

Because if you don't understand "an IDE , OS rolled into one" then you don't understand what Smalltalk is anyway. Its not easy to explain what Pharo is , the same way its not easy to explain what Emacs is , etc. There are may ideas and workflow integrated into it and its development workflow is radically different to normal programming languages. "Does it compile to executables" No it does not , but there is no need.…

> Because if you don't understand "an IDE , OS rolled into one" then you don't understand what Smalltalk is anyway.

For people that know Smalltalk, "a Smalltalk environment" contains more information than "an IDE, OS rolled into one" (which you also could possibly apply as a description to some javascript environments or a whole number of other things that could exist, it is not like Smalltalk is the only way to build such an environment)

Re: Pharo 4.0 Released

#40

Post by MadcapJake »

StevePerkins wrote: post #16

Not having heard of Pharo before 10 minutes ago, I wish this website did a better job of explaining what it is. "... an object-oriented programming language and a powerful environment... (think IDE and OS rolled into one)" An IDE and OS rolled into one? What does that even mean? I had to go to Wikipedia to learn that this is basically a modern Smalltalk implementation. So why not just say that on the main page? I onc…

> So why not just say that on the main page?

Because most people would not be intrigued by a site that said:

  Pharo
  Basically a modern smalltalk implementation
Personally I think the site is really nice and explanatory. But I agree that a "Learn More" button at the way bottom which brings you to a tour-style page would be a useful addition to their homepage.
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