> The whole reason Pharo exists is to break free from the constraints of other people's ideas of what Smalltalk is and should remain to be.
Pharo is no more constrained by Smalltalk's legacy than GNU Smalltalk (which eschews the traditional IDE) and Hoot Smalltalk (a JVM-based Smalltalk with unique enhancements) and Dolphin Smalltalk (which dares to be Windows-only) are. Most Smalltalks have their own special enhancements thus making them less and less compatible with "standard" Smalltalk. So I see no reason to worry about Pharo being shackled. I always advertise Pharo as "a modern variant of Smalltalk created in 2008" which should cement the idea that Pharo is relevant today. I always compare Pharo to Clojure (a modern variant of LISP) and Elixir (a modern variant of Erlang). Pharo is free to make great strides forward. As long as its "core" remains Smalltalk, Pharo will always be a Smalltalk. No matter how much Pharo evolves, it will never give up its core, which includes: 1. Alan Kay's pure and simple object-oriented conception. 2. The core syntax which is message-based and consists of three types of messages. 3. The live coding environment. 4. Reflectivity and a powerful metaprogramming capability. I can't imagine a future where Pharo wouldn't have these defining qualities. Therefore, Pharo belongs in the Smalltalk family. And, btw, Sven, you are absolutely correct: Pharo is not Smalltalk. Because Smalltalk is not one language but a family of languages. No one thing can be a family. However, Pharo is a Smalltalk. And this is undeniable. -- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html
