I don't speak for the pharo community but even when I was new to smalltalk back 4 years ago if I have read a comment like "Smalltalk is dead, why are we studying this useless language" I would keep my distance from that person. Because a) calling something "dead" in software is stupid b) calling something "useless" in software is even more stupid. I would prefer it if I was not so rude but in situations like these its kinda pointless hiding the obvious truth. There are people who still code entire OSs for my first computer Amstrad CPC 6128 a computer back from 1988 with 128 kb of Ram and 4 hz of cpu. One such OS has multitasking , GUIs, video player, web browser and all that built on technology that is 30 years old and thousands times slower, thats how useful "dead" software is.
Ask the same people for how long Java has been dead , because people have been declaring the death of Java for decades now. Java is beyond dead , its actually the queen of undead. I am not promoting either Smalltalk or Pharo because frankly there are better alternatives out there. But I am using Pharo because I find the whole environment very enjoyable for my taste. I also admire people of this community because they are not afraid to break away from popularity and innovate, I find this very refreshing. Software development is littered with unimaginative clones, Pharo is a breath of fresh air. There are many flaws in Pharo and I think as a community we are well aware of them , for us it was never an issue what we should do to bring new users , but rather how to convince more people to contribute because in the end problems dont fix themselves. This a known problem for vast majority of open source software and if we use your class criteria most software is "dead" by these standards. -Morphic designer has been tried in the past, its a huge project and quite complex to pull through. I would not hold my breath. -Pharo is not 64 bit, yet, but soon -The perks of allowing the system to be hacked easily are that you going to have some severe side effects in some cases, especially if you dont know what you are doing. -Popups , no idea what you mean , I dont have such problem - sources is exactly what the name says, source code, the image contains only bytecode, so without sources you cannot view the source code of the system - Easier morph removal exists, just inspect the parent morph the inspector will show you the children then go to the child you want to delete and issue a self delete command. But yeah halos could be improved in this case. -As phil said, use fork for delay and your image will never freeze again because of the code you executed. I understand someone not wanting to learn Pharo or Smalltalk on the basis he wont use it as a professional, I sympathize. Then again, I have not used 99% of the languages I have learned.Do I regret learning them ? Nope, they made me a better programmer and that is what Pharo is doing too. Lets be sincere here , people who love to be spoon fed wont be contributing to open source project any time soon. Contributing to an open source project is difficult, require patience and determination. No GC language forces you to use garbage collection you can circumvent it easily using an FFI. But then if you have no intention of taking advantage of GC then there is no point on using a GC language and I can understand why you prefer C++ CLI. On other hand Pharo does enforce dynamic types but then OOP by nature is dynamic anyway. On Sun, Oct 2, 2016 at 9:59 PM CodeDmitry <dimamakh...@gmail.com> wrote: > @kilon.alios > > [1] > I like C++/CLI more than C# because it is very refreshing to use a > language capable of using managed memory and unmanaged memory. > > I am too used to being in languages where garbage collection is > forced on you and everything must be done via new or stack types > such as Java, most scripting languages; > Or using languages where static-types are forced on you and > heavily encouraged over dynamic types. > > I feel very "free" when I write C++CLI, as it can do everything > C# can(although many things are admitably harder), but it can also > call C when it feels like it. > > [2] > If you want to get more users, I hope you are checking the things > people are saying about Smalltalk. > > In my class last week, the general concensus was that > "Smalltalk is dead, why are we studying this useless language". > > Personally, I really enjoy the environment, but I feel that the > environment would do better from giving existing users a reason > to tell their friends about Pharo, and to like the language. > > There are many things that relate to this > > 1. Reasons to be excited about Pharo/Smalltalk > - It is a system where you can modify the system within the system. > - It has a very simple syntax, which is capable of doing things as > powerful as JavaScript. > - It is easy to get on Windows(3 minute download self contained)... > - It has pretty powerful prototyping means, but it's not quite as > powerful as > it could be. One way to improve this would be to add a morph editor > similar to > VB6. Morphs are somewhat scary to new users right now, and I feel > they > stand a bit > further than where AWT/Swing is in terms of difficulty getting > started, even > if it is not necessarily true. > > 2. Quality of Life > - Blocks the GUI thread in strange scenarios: It's really aggrevating > when > it does this; when you type in code, the GUI should not freeze! > - Make it a bit easier to remove morphs(Pit of least astonishment, > shift > alt click > is not obvious, and morph that consists of many morphs is somewhat > hard to select > the parent morph, so you have to delete the child morph then shift > alt > click the > same place to select the underlying morph(eg grids). > - More themes! > - I know you're going to hate me for this but... It's a bit annoying to > install > Pharo on 64-bit Linux right now... > - It is kind-of hard to understand what .image, .changes, and .sources > are and > the material online isn't very exhaustive on their responsibilities. > To date I > am not actually sure what purpose .sources serves. > - It's too easy to put Pharo into inconsistant state where it harasses > you with > popups. It should be easier to access the "undo whatever I just did > please", whether > it is editing of code, or running a code, I am not sure how easy this > is but at the > moment, it's not as up-front as it could be; It's scary when you do > something and > your environment starts yelling at you. (Maybe we could use some > Toasts instead of > Popups?). > - Is there a Pharo alternative to JavaScript timeouts? > > That is all I could think of for now, probably not going to help you much > but I wanted > to give my 1/1000 of a cent. > > > > -- > View this message in context: > http://forum.world.st/Intro-to-Microsoft-COM-for-Smalltalkers-tp4917738p4917788.html > Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > >
