"I would like to remind people that the aim of the Pharo project is more ambitious than the Smalltalk one"
I would like to hear this grand plan of Pharo, where is it ? Where is the official roadmap ? What are the goals that the core development team agree on ? Why are such a secret and I have never seen them discussed here or anywhere on the internet. I would not call Pharo odd, Pharo is diffirent but not that diffirent. It offers me a way to code that I prefer over python , but I would not call my experience coding with pharo radically different compared to python coding. Smalltalk used to be the Purple Cow no doubt when it first came out , so many new concepts and ideas that were far apart from anything remotely similar. But nowdays the smalltalk paradigm has been embraced in several fronts , languages and IDEs are moving closer and closer. It took python 24 years to get as popular as it is nowdays, the most popular languages have a similar lifespan if not more in some cases. Its a really long process and its full of compromises and ugly truths. I also dont like the fact that Pharo calls itself "Smalltalk inspired" its an insult to people who put an effort into Smalltalk by spending hours making code. You cannot be "Smalltalk inspired" by forking code , your at best "Smalltalk based" and that makes you Smalltalk. Ruby can call itself "Smalltalk inspired" , Pharo cannot. This shows to me a very flawed mentality inside the heads of those Pharoers that believe this, its shows me fear , its shows me embarrassment, it shows me weakness. I would prefer it if Pharo was advertising itself as a modern Smalltalk implementation as a project that lives true to the Smalltalk philosophy and moves forward. Instead here we are calling Smalltalk "less ambitious" , why ? Innovativing more than any other language have done so , is not ambitious enough for you ? I do believe in Pharo If I did not I would not contribute but I would prefer it without all the hype. Innovate all you want , code whatever makes you happy, live your dream but also respect the dreams of others, especially when you base your success on their success. And yes I will dare say it , Smalltalk has been extremely succesful in many fronts , far more than Pharo currently is. PS: Just a clarification because people love to put words on other people mouths, I never said that languages like Clojure and Scheme has been miserable failures generally, but based on the hype of how popular they will become. Both Clojure and Sceme are great language with continuously expanding communities . I was merely wanted to point out how hype does not help and there was tons of hype when Java allowed for the creation of those languages. Jython for example is one of the oldest Java languages (2001), and there was tons of hype when the project started that Jython could become at worst an equal to Cpython on terms of popularity and even more popular than Java at best. Sun even funded the development of Jython back in 2008. I admire what the creator of Redline done as I admire the effort that has been invested on both Pharo and Squeak. Its really hard to make a competitive product in a world so complex and so demanding as the one we live now. I do believe in Pharo and I hope the best for it but even Pharo never makes it to the top 20 most popular languages even in 30 years I wont lose my sleep over it. I love Pharo for what it is, and not what it may become.
