July 2014 - Esug-list - lists.esug.org

Re: [Esug-list] "Pharo is Smalltalk inspired"

by Andres Valloud

Surely that can be cast in a more positive light, perhaps sharing your thoughts on how to get to a qualitatively better place. Before we write more emails, though, please consider the following... We experience periodic bursts of unhelpful self inflicted injury. Our lives and energies would be better spent getting stuff done in an organized fashion. It is essential to keep conversations open, professional, and widget focused. However, email's high latency tends to promote an increasingly defensive posture. So, ideally, those interested in tackling these challenges would get on the same page in person. We can start doing that just two weeks from now (*and* over beer or equivalent). I'm looking forward to it :). On 7/31/14 5:26 , Reinout Heeck wrote: > >> Smalltalk as a technology, philosophy and community has always evolved >> - to the future (to what else?). Claiming that one leaves a community >> in emphasizing that one wants to move to the future silently implies >> that that community didn't move to the future, i. e. stays as is. I >> don't think that this is a correct observation with regards to Smalltalk. > > > The problem with the Smalltalk community is that it holds itself back. > For example there are no Smalltalks with a decent namespace > implementation (although there was Dave Simmons' S# for a while). The > single survivor seems to be NewSpeak which clearly chose to 'divorce' > itself from Smalltalk 'proper'. > > I recall Pharo was created because Squeak did not cater to the > professional market and Pharo would conquer the FLOSS portion of that > niche. Seeing that Pharo did not get host window support, nor decent > namespaces it seems fair to say that the community did not get its act > together -- and if we stretch it we might say that the community held > Pharo back. > > What I see in the Smalltalk community is a giant circle-jerk (direct > object manipulationz! refactoringz! TDDz! xUnitz! we are greatz!) with > people wallowing in past greatness. > > The reality (a 'correct' observation as per the above?) is that people > are experimenting with new(ish) software development methodologies in > *other* environments nowadays. > The example-du-jour is of course Bret Victor who proposes an IDE where > we can flatten abstractions (like time) into 2d so our brains can > readily grasp and predict consequences of code alterations. Seeing that > Apple xCode IDE adopts this paradigm (with Swift) before the Smalltalk > IDE did is telling. > > Seeing that Pharo and Squeak are still producing browser framework after > browser framework and -oh yeah- let's reify packages as objects and we > still need a JIT, I observe a lot of ant-like activity at ground level > and very little 'giants' activity at the 'how to encode my abstractions' > level. (Another example: there still is no accepted paradigm in the > Smalltalk community that instructs us how to document implementation > requirements and decisions -- go figure). > So the programmer's discourse with the Smalltalk machine has not changed > many times in the past, perhaps just once during the introduction of > refactorings and TDD at roughly the same time. > > > What the Smalltalk community seems to miss is that 'Smalltalk 2.0 is > dead, long live Smalltalk 3.0' feeling. > > Perhaps it behooves ESUG to create a session where the community > *finally* buries Smalltalk 1.0 and perhaps also pick the date where we > sunset Smalltalk 2.0. > > > > > Go Doru, > Pharo desperately wants to escape Smalltalk 1.0 but the community > won't let you. > > > > > Reinout > - > > > > _______________________________________________ > Esug-list mailing list > Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org > http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org >

July 31, 2014

Re: [Esug-list] "Pharo is Smalltalk inspired"

by Johan Fabry

On Jul 31, 2014, at 7:09 AM, Helge Nowak <hknowak(a)yahoo.de> wrote: > I think there is a common understanding of what Smalltalk is and what is not: Ruby, Java and many others ARE Smalltalk inspired. Up to now I considered all Smalltalks that carry that term and also Squeak and the Pharo fork as "true" Smalltalks. The thing is, I’m not so sure that there is a common understanding of what Smalltalk is and what it is not. For us, people with many years of ST experience, this may be the case, but for (relative) newcomers I think this is not the case. Doru’s audience and the people looking at the Pharo web site would be the latter. > By Doru's words he considers Pharo more in the "inspired, non-Smalltalk" corner. That is ok, yet has consequences. One of those is that in this light Pharo is leaving the Smalltalk community. Whether you reckon the word "divorce" for that departure aggressive is your personal feeling. Divorce is a usual term describing the splitting of a former whole. I don't find it aggressive. Sorry if I read more into the divorce word than what you meant to put there. But I think that the word divorce has at least a negative connotation. (I guess I am not the only one but I can of course not speak for the general public.) > Smalltalk as a technology, philosophy and community has always evolved - to the future (to what else?). Claiming that one leaves a community in emphasizing that one wants to move to the future silently implies that that community didn't move to the future, i. e. stays as is. I don't think that this is a correct observation with regards to Smalltalk. If it was intended to say that Pharo wants to move away from some Smalltalk concept (technical or non-technical) it should be said so, and whith regards to which concept and into what differing direction. There are many ways to the future. No problem with that. Smalltalk will walk its path. Well, there are different paths to the future, different ways to evolve towards similar - or different - goals. Pharo is choosing its own path, but that does not imply that other ST’s cannot choose similar (or different) paths. Given the audience of Doru’s talk I think it’s OK to say it like this. With more time (or web page space) this could be made more clear of course. ---> Save our in-boxes! http://emailcharter.org <--- Johan Fabry - http://pleiad.cl/~jfabry PLEIAD lab - Computer Science Department (DCC) - University of Chile

July 31, 2014

Re: [Esug-list] "Pharo is Smalltalk inspired"

by Steven Kelly

It's maybe not the best wording, but I think it's a good way to look at things. There's not much to be gained from several identical and competing Smalltalks, either for each individually or for the community as a whole, so it seems natural that one or more might want to keep their options open for "making a break" from Smalltalk. I don't think the world outside Smalltalk sees much value in something being "Smalltalk standard compatible", but it does see value in individual parts of Smalltalk (language, core libraries, IDE, ethos). Thinking freely from a starting point of Smalltalk might give rise to something that includes most that is great about Smalltalk, with extra good it's from other ecosystems, and its own improvements. As every non-Smalltalker knows "Smalltalk failed", having a new identity would make the result more marketable. I'm not saying this is the right approach, and certainly not the only one (I love my Smalltalk!), but it seems reasonable enough. Good luck to all! Steve -----Original Message----- From: "Helge Nowak" <hknowak(a)yahoo.de> Sent: ‎31/‎07/‎2014 13:08 To: "pharo-business(a)lists.pharo.org" <pharo-business(a)lists.pharo.org>; "pharo-consortium(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr" <pharo-consortium(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr>; "ESUG" <esug-list(a)lists.esug.org> Subject: [Esug-list] "Pharo is Smalltalk inspired" Dear Pharoers, I stumbled upon Doru’s (BTW excellent, as usual) presentation on Live Objects at NDC 2014. In there he states “Pharo is Smalltalk inspired. … we want to point ourselves that we are Smalltalk inspired because we want to move towards the future”. This implies three things: Pharo is NOT Smalltalk All Smalltalks are not moving towards the future The Pharo community wants to get divorced from the community that gave them birth I am wondering whether this is indeed the official position of the Pharo community? And how the Smalltalkers think about it. Cheers Helge

July 31, 2014

Re: [Esug-list] "Pharo is Smalltalk inspired"

by Reinout Heeck

> Smalltalk as a technology, philosophy and community has always evolved > - to the future (to what else?). Claiming that one leaves a community > in emphasizing that one wants to move to the future silently implies > that that community didn't move to the future, i. e. stays as is. I > don't think that this is a correct observation with regards to Smalltalk. The problem with the Smalltalk community is that it holds itself back. For example there are no Smalltalks with a decent namespace implementation (although there was Dave Simmons' S# for a while). The single survivor seems to be NewSpeak which clearly chose to 'divorce' itself from Smalltalk 'proper'. I recall Pharo was created because Squeak did not cater to the professional market and Pharo would conquer the FLOSS portion of that niche. Seeing that Pharo did not get host window support, nor decent namespaces it seems fair to say that the community did not get its act together -- and if we stretch it we might say that the community held Pharo back. What I see in the Smalltalk community is a giant circle-jerk (direct object manipulationz! refactoringz! TDDz! xUnitz! we are greatz!) with people wallowing in past greatness. The reality (a 'correct' observation as per the above?) is that people are experimenting with new(ish) software development methodologies in *other* environments nowadays. The example-du-jour is of course Bret Victor who proposes an IDE where we can flatten abstractions (like time) into 2d so our brains can readily grasp and predict consequences of code alterations. Seeing that Apple xCode IDE adopts this paradigm (with Swift) before the Smalltalk IDE did is telling. Seeing that Pharo and Squeak are still producing browser framework after browser framework and -oh yeah- let's reify packages as objects and we still need a JIT, I observe a lot of ant-like activity at ground level and very little 'giants' activity at the 'how to encode my abstractions' level. (Another example: there still is no accepted paradigm in the Smalltalk community that instructs us how to document implementation requirements and decisions -- go figure). So the programmer's discourse with the Smalltalk machine has not changed many times in the past, perhaps just once during the introduction of refactorings and TDD at roughly the same time. What the Smalltalk community seems to miss is that 'Smalltalk 2.0 is dead, long live Smalltalk 3.0' feeling. Perhaps it behooves ESUG to create a session where the community *finally* buries Smalltalk 1.0 and perhaps also pick the date where we sunset Smalltalk 2.0. Go Doru, Pharo desperately wants to escape Smalltalk 1.0 but the community won't let you. Reinout -

July 31, 2014

Re: [Esug-list] "Pharo is Smalltalk inspired"

by Niall Ross

Dear Helge, Johan et al, to me, it seems obvious that Pharo is Smalltalk, in a sense in which Ruby et al are not Smalltalk although they are Smalltalk-inspired. Of course, all Smalltalks are also inspired by earlier Smalltalks and by other current Smalltalks. All Smalltalk dialects share a good deal of base class library compatibility but of course even as regards non-UI, what runs on one Smalltalk may DNU on another, unless written with a cross-dialect goal in view or using a compatibility layer or with some code differences in dialect versions. When you get into the area of UI, compatibility is more the exception than the rule. It may be that the talk's phrasing was accidentally a bit misleading - or was intentionally exaggerated to avoid a "Smalltalk - isn't that old" reaction from that particular audience. I don't mind exactly what is said in any particular talk oriented to a particular audience, but it seems clear to me that Pharo is a dialect of Smalltalk; it is not _just_ Smalltalk-inspired. Just my 0.02p FWIW Niall Ross Helge Nowak wrote: > Dear Johan, > > I think there is a common understanding of what Smalltalk is and what > is not: Ruby, Java and many others ARE Smalltalk inspired. Up to now I > considered all Smalltalks that carry that term and also Squeak and the > Pharo fork as "true" Smalltalks. > > By Doru's words he considers Pharo more in the "inspired, > non-Smalltalk" corner. That is ok, yet has consequences. One of those > is that in this light Pharo is leaving the Smalltalk community. > Whether you reckon the word "divorce" for that departure aggressive is > your personal feeling. Divorce is a usual term describing the > splitting of a former whole. I don't find it aggressive. > > Smalltalk as a technology, philosophy and community has always evolved > - to the future (to what else?). Claiming that one leaves a community > in emphasizing that one wants to move to the future silently implies > that that community didn't move to the future, i. e. stays as is. I > don't think that this is a correct observation with regards to > Smalltalk. If it was intended to say that Pharo wants to move away > from some Smalltalk concept (technical or non-technical) it should be > said so, and whith regards to which concept and into what differing > direction. There are many ways to the future. No problem with that. > Smalltalk will walk its path. > > Cheers > Helge > „Wege entstehen dadurch, dass man sie geht.“, Franz Kafka > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > *Von:* Johan Fabry <jfabry(a)dcc.uchile.cl> > *An:* Helge Nowak <hknowak(a)yahoo.de> > *CC:* "pharo-business(a)lists.pharo.org" > <pharo-business(a)lists.pharo.org>; > "pharo-consortium(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr" > <pharo-consortium(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr>; ESUG <esug-list(a)lists.esug.org> > *Gesendet:* 12:24 Donnerstag, 31.Juli 2014 > *Betreff:* Re: [Esug-list] "Pharo is Smalltalk inspired" > > > On Jul 31, 2014, at 6:05 AM, Helge Nowak <hknowak(a)yahoo.de > <mailto:hknowak@yahoo.de>> wrote: > > > Dear Pharoers, > > > > I stumbled upon Doru’s (BTW excellent, as usual) presentation on > Live Objects at NDC 2014. In there he states “Pharo is Smalltalk > inspired. … we want to point ourselves that we are Smalltalk inspired > because we want to move towards the future”. This implies three things: > > • Pharo is NOT Smalltalk > > Well, the question may also be: what IS Smalltalk? The ANSI Standard? > ST-80? Whose implementation IS Smalltalk in that case? I think many > current implementations may safely say that they are Smalltalk-inpired. > > > • All Smalltalks are not moving towards the future > > I think you are overgeneralizing. Doru is saying that Pharo is not > sticking to (let’s say) the historical concept of Smalltalk. Sure, you > may imply from that that some Smalltalks ARE sticking to that concept. > But IMO it is not valid to conclude that he is saying that ALL of them > are like that. > > > • The Pharo community wants to get divorced from the community > that gave them birth > > I don’t follow your reasoning. Divorce is a very strong and aggressive > statement. I don’t see that from what Doru is saying. Could you > provide more detail for your train of thought? > > > > I am wondering whether this is indeed the official position of the > Pharo community? And how the Smalltalkers think about it. > > > Just my 0.02EUR ... > > ---> Save our in-boxes! http://emailcharter.org > <http://emailcharter.org/><--- > > Johan Fabry - http://pleiad.cl/~jfabry <http://pleiad.cl/%7Ejfabry> > PLEIAD lab - Computer Science Department (DCC) - University of Chile > > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >_______________________________________________ >Esug-list mailing list >Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org >http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org > >

July 31, 2014

Re: [Esug-list] "Pharo is Smalltalk inspired"

by Marcus Denker

On 31 Jul 2014, at 13:09, Helge Nowak <hknowak(a)yahoo.de> wrote: > Dear Johan, > > I think there is a common understanding of what Smalltalk is and what is not: Ruby, Java and many others ARE Smalltalk inspired. Up to now I considered all Smalltalks that carry that term and also Squeak and the Pharo fork as "true" Smalltalks. > Squeak definitly never had that goal. When I discovered it it was explicitly stated that is was “Work in progress based on Smalltalk 80 with which it is still reasonably compatible”. > By Doru's words he considers Pharo more in the "inspired, non-Smalltalk" corner. That is ok, yet has consequences. Yes, the freedom to do things that are not in all the other Smalltalks already. Not because these are “not Smalltalk”, only because they where not there in the past, even though maybe they should have. Marcus

July 31, 2014

Re: [Esug-list] "Pharo is Smalltalk inspired"

by Andres Valloud

On 7/31/14 4:09 , Helge Nowak wrote: > Dear Johan, > > I think there is a common understanding of what Smalltalk is and what is > not: Ruby, Java and many others ARE Smalltalk inspired. Up to now I > considered all Smalltalks that carry that term and also Squeak and the > Pharo fork as "true" Smalltalks. > > By Doru's words he considers Pharo more in the "inspired, non-Smalltalk" > corner. That is ok, yet has consequences. One of those is that in this > light Pharo is leaving the Smalltalk community. So, how do you define "Smalltalk community"? Andres. > Whether you reckon the > word "divorce" for that departure aggressive is your personal feeling. > Divorce is a usual term describing the splitting of a former whole. I > don't find it aggressive. > > Smalltalk as a technology, philosophy and community has always evolved - > to the future (to what else?). Claiming that one leaves a community in > emphasizing that one wants to move to the future silently implies that > that community didn't move to the future, i. e. stays as is. I don't > think that this is a correct observation with regards to Smalltalk. If > it was intended to say that Pharo wants to move away from some Smalltalk > concept (technical or non-technical) it should be said so, and whith > regards to which concept and into what differing direction. There are > many ways to the future. No problem with that. Smalltalk will walk its path. > > Cheers > Helge > „Wege entstehen dadurch, dass man sie geht.“, Franz Kafka > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > *Von:* Johan Fabry <jfabry(a)dcc.uchile.cl> > *An:* Helge Nowak <hknowak(a)yahoo.de> > *CC:* "pharo-business(a)lists.pharo.org" <pharo-business(a)lists.pharo.org>; > "pharo-consortium(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr" > <pharo-consortium(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr>; ESUG <esug-list(a)lists.esug.org> > *Gesendet:* 12:24 Donnerstag, 31.Juli 2014 > *Betreff:* Re: [Esug-list] "Pharo is Smalltalk inspired" > > > On Jul 31, 2014, at 6:05 AM, Helge Nowak <hknowak(a)yahoo.de > <mailto:hknowak@yahoo.de>> wrote: > > > Dear Pharoers, > > > > I stumbled upon Doru’s (BTW excellent, as usual) presentation on Live > Objects at NDC 2014. In there he states “Pharo is Smalltalk inspired. … > we want to point ourselves that we are Smalltalk inspired because we > want to move towards the future”. This implies three things: > > • Pharo is NOT Smalltalk > > Well, the question may also be: what IS Smalltalk? The ANSI Standard? > ST-80? Whose implementation IS Smalltalk in that case? I think many > current implementations may safely say that they are Smalltalk-inpired. > > > • All Smalltalks are not moving towards the future > > I think you are overgeneralizing. Doru is saying that Pharo is not > sticking to (let’s say) the historical concept of Smalltalk. Sure, you > may imply from that that some Smalltalks ARE sticking to that concept. > But IMO it is not valid to conclude that he is saying that ALL of them > are like that. > > > • The Pharo community wants to get divorced from the community > that gave them birth > > I don’t follow your reasoning. Divorce is a very strong and aggressive > statement. I don’t see that from what Doru is saying. Could you provide > more detail for your train of thought? > > > > I am wondering whether this is indeed the official position of the > Pharo community? And how the Smalltalkers think about it. > > > Just my 0.02EUR ... > > ---> Save our in-boxes! http://emailcharter.org > <http://emailcharter.org/><--- > > Johan Fabry - http://pleiad.cl/~jfabry > PLEIAD lab - Computer Science Department (DCC) - University of Chile > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Esug-list mailing list > Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org > http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org >

July 31, 2014

Re: [Esug-list] "Pharo is Smalltalk inspired"

by Helge Nowak

Dear Clément, thank you for your valuable contribution. So, what you are saying is that none of the Smalltalks around (VA Smalltalk, GemStone, Smalltalk/X, Dolphin, VisualWorks, ObjectStudio etc, pp.) is Smalltalk. Kent Beck once used the term "balkanization". The point of my email was to open eyes to not run into that behaviour! It won't help the Smalltalk community - to which I still count Pharo ... and hope you do too! Cheers Helge ________________________________ Von: Clément Bera <bera.clement(a)gmail.com> An: Helge Nowak <hknowak(a)yahoo.de> CC: "pharo-business(a)lists.pharo.org" <pharo-business(a)lists.pharo.org>; "pharo-consortium(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr" <pharo-consortium(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr>; ESUG <esug-list(a)lists.esug.org> Gesendet: 13:00 Donnerstag, 31.Juli 2014 Betreff: Re: [Esug-list] "Pharo is Smalltalk inspired" 2014-07-31 12:05 GMT+02:00 Helge Nowak <hknowak(a)yahoo.de>: Dear Pharoers, > >I stumbled upon Doru’s (BTW excellent, as usual) presentation on Live Objects at NDC 2014. In there he states “Pharo is Smalltalk inspired. … we want to point ourselves that we are Smalltalk inspired because we want to move towards the future”. This implies three things: > 1. Pharo is NOT Smalltalk > 2. All Smalltalks are not moving towards the future > 3. The Pharo community wants to get divorced from the community that gave them birth > > >I am wondering whether this is indeed the official position of the Pharo community? And how the Smalltalkers think about it. Well, I tried to open a smalltalk-80 image recently and it didn't work on the Pharo VM. In addition, it seems that recent Pharo images cannot run on the Xerox-D microcoded machines. So I think clearly Pharo is not Smalltalk for obvious backward compatibility issues. I love mails about this topic it really makes my day each time :-). Clement >Cheers >Helge > > >_______________________________________________ >Esug-list mailing list >Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org >http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org > > >

July 31, 2014

Re: [Esug-list] "Pharo is Smalltalk inspired"

by Helge Nowak

Dear Johan, I think there is a common understanding of what Smalltalk is and what is not: Ruby, Java and many others ARE Smalltalk inspired. Up to now I considered all Smalltalks that carry that term and also Squeak and the Pharo fork as "true" Smalltalks. By Doru's words he considers Pharo more in the "inspired, non-Smalltalk" corner. That is ok, yet has consequences. One of those is that in this light Pharo is leaving the Smalltalk community. Whether you reckon the word "divorce" for that departure aggressive is your personal feeling. Divorce is a usual term describing the splitting of a former whole. I don't find it aggressive. Smalltalk as a technology, philosophy and community has always evolved - to the future (to what else?). Claiming that one leaves a community in emphasizing that one wants to move to the future silently implies that that community didn't move to the future, i. e. stays as is. I don't think that this is a correct observation with regards to Smalltalk. If it was intended to say that Pharo wants to move away from some Smalltalk concept (technical or non-technical) it should be said so, and whith regards to which concept and into what differing direction. There are many ways to the future. No problem with that. Smalltalk will walk its path. Cheers Helge „Wege entstehen dadurch, dass man sie geht.“, Franz Kafka ________________________________ Von: Johan Fabry <jfabry(a)dcc.uchile.cl> An: Helge Nowak <hknowak(a)yahoo.de> CC: "pharo-business(a)lists.pharo.org" <pharo-business(a)lists.pharo.org>; "pharo-consortium(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr" <pharo-consortium(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr>; ESUG <esug-list(a)lists.esug.org> Gesendet: 12:24 Donnerstag, 31.Juli 2014 Betreff: Re: [Esug-list] "Pharo is Smalltalk inspired" On Jul 31, 2014, at 6:05 AM, Helge Nowak <hknowak(a)yahoo.de> wrote: > Dear Pharoers, > > I stumbled upon Doru’s (BTW excellent, as usual) presentation on Live Objects at NDC 2014. In there he states “Pharo is Smalltalk inspired. … we want to point ourselves that we are Smalltalk inspired because we want to move towards the future”. This implies three things: > • Pharo is NOT Smalltalk Well, the question may also be: what IS Smalltalk? The ANSI Standard? ST-80? Whose implementation IS Smalltalk in that case? I think many current implementations may safely say that they are Smalltalk-inpired. > • All Smalltalks are not moving towards the future I think you are overgeneralizing. Doru is saying that Pharo is not sticking to (let’s say) the historical concept of Smalltalk. Sure, you may imply from that that some Smalltalks ARE sticking to that concept. But IMO it is not valid to conclude that he is saying that ALL of them are like that. > • The Pharo community wants to get divorced from the community that gave them birth I don’t follow your reasoning. Divorce is a very strong and aggressive statement. I don’t see that from what Doru is saying. Could you provide more detail for your train of thought? > I am wondering whether this is indeed the official position of the Pharo community? And how the Smalltalkers think about it. Just my 0.02EUR ... ---> Save our in-boxes! http://emailcharter.org <--- Johan Fabry - http://pleiad.cl/~jfabry PLEIAD lab - Computer Science Department (DCC) - University of Chile

July 31, 2014

Re: [Esug-list] "Pharo is Smalltalk inspired"

by Marcus Denker

On 31 Jul 2014, at 12:05, Helge Nowak <hknowak(a)yahoo.de> wrote: > Dear Pharoers, > > I stumbled upon Doru’s (BTW excellent, as usual) presentation on Live Objects at NDC 2014. In there he states “Pharo is Smalltalk inspired. … we want to point ourselves that we are Smalltalk inspired because we want to move towards the future”. This implies three things: > Pharo is NOT Smalltalk > All Smalltalks are not moving towards the future > The Pharo community wants to get divorced from the community that gave them birth > > I am wondering whether this is indeed the official position of the Pharo community? And how the Smalltalkers think about it. > The whole thing started by the fact that there are lots of great things to do that Smalltalk did not yet do. (That are 100% in line with the *idea* of Smalltalk, and that are very natural and clearly the next step). But if we say that we are Smalltalk, then people will immediately request 100% compatibility forever. We actually had exactly that case. Someone told us that for *every* change we need to first sync with all Smalltalk Vendors and all other open source Smalltalks and only of they are ok (and implement the same at the same time) we are allowed to e.g. add a new API in Pharo core classes. Reason: “Pharo is Smalltalk, it says right so on the website”. So Pharo is Smalltalk in the sense of being a reflective, dynamic, always improving environment. It is *not* Smalltalk in the sense of a finished, non-changing artefact. Marcus

July 31, 2014