> pharo is not smalltalk > TedVanGaalen wrote >> Pharo IS Smalltalk, whether you like it or not.
An ancient parable goes... > A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had > been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and > form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, > of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it > they groped about it. In the case of the first person, whose hand landed > on the trunk, said "This being is like a thick snake". For another one > whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another > person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a > tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the > elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. > The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth > and like a spear. And from its Wikipedia article: > In some versions, they stop talking, start listening and collaborate to > "see" the full elephant. TL;DR Two parts of the same elephant: 1. Pharo is Smalltalk (in the sense that St-72, 76, and 80 are) 2. Pharo is not Smalltalk (in the sense that most non-Smalltalkers think that "Smalltalk" = St-80, so they would be mislead and unnecessary turned off by #1) The *marketing* decision's logic is something like the following: Given that both of these soundbites are equally (un)true, which one is more likely to bring people to Pharo? |-----------------|-------------Audience--------------------| |--Sound Byte--|--Familiar w ST--|------Unfamiliar------| ____________________________________________| |--Pharo = ST---|-----N/A*-------| Ew! Last century!----| |-Pharo ~= ST--|-----N/A*-------| Hmm, interesting...--| * Have already made up their mind and will not likely be convinced by a soundbite anyway While one can certainly understand disagreeing with the possible effectiveness of the strategy, these threads usually IMHO have the feel of a holy war from the camp touching the "Pharo = ST" part of the elephant. In the unlikely event that anyone is still reading this, I'll paste my longer explanation from a similar 2015 thread [1] Sean P. DeNigris wrote > The best way to understand the rationale for Pharo's marketing decision is > to read one of the many long threads about it on the Pharo lists. I doubt > rehashing it will provide new value. > > The issue boils down to the fact that the term Smalltalk has been > overloaded. The original meaning was prototype Dynabook software that was > used to bootstrap its replacement every 4 years. This true definition, by > design, leaves plenty of room for innovation. Unfortunately, when > Smalltalk-80 was released to the world, that became what people mean when > they use the word Smalltalk. Obviously, people already familiar with > Smalltalk are going to look at Pharo and go, "oh look, it's Smalltalk"*. > But that is not the target market. The audience for the Smalltalk-inspired > campaign is the other 99% of programmers who would never get past: > "Smalltalk = 1980 = dead = not worth checking out". > > Anyway, I'd rather get back to hacking than waste more time in these IMHO > mostly-pointless debates. In fact, I disagree that unpopularity is a > problem at all. I would say that our biggest advantage is not being > popular. I'll take a small community of true-believers over a mob of trend > followers any day. > > * Although they'd probably base that opinion on the syntax, which is the > least important part of Smalltalk (the live environment being first, and > libraries second). In fact, if Ruby had a live, dynamic, > turtles-all-the-way-down environment, with a Morphic-like uniform, live > interface, and Smalltalk-like tools, I probably wouldn't have gravitated > to Smalltalk 1. Why Aren't People Using Smalltalk? http://forum.world.st/Why-Aren-t-People-Using-Smalltalk-tp4843473p4848195.html ----- Cheers, Sean -- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html
