5 ms·

I've noticed that as well - it's a bit strange given that Pharo is a fork of Squeak, which does proclaim its ST origins on its front page. I wouldn't say Small

I've noticed that as well - it's a bit strange given that Pharo is a fork of Squeak, which does proclaim its ST origins on its front page. I wouldn't say Smalltalk has a bad rep nowadays, but it used to be knocked for being too expensive (the cost of ST licences back when was beyond a joke), too slow, and producing nasty-looking non-native GUIs. These have almost all been fixed.

igouy 5y ago
> cost of ST licences back when was beyond a joke March 7, 1988 "Smalltalk/V 286 is available now and costs $199.95" https://books.google.com/books?id=CD8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=digitalk+smalltalk+v/286&source=bl&ots=jg-JNM2df5&sig=zCZ6zSeRV1zcLMT_VhaK49_YWkQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CFIQ6AEwB2oVChMIh-Xi5qS9xwIVkCWICh1taQpK#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=CD8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=P... > nasty-looking non-native GUIs The "non-native GUI" was quite important because Smalltalk was running on MS-DOS — not on MS-Windows.
- varjag 5y ago
  Well $200 in 1980s is something like $500 today. I don't think I own any piece of software costing that much.
  - igouy 5y ago
    And … ? Dec 1988, MS Word 5.0 for MS-DOS, $450.
  - goatlover 5y ago
    Adobe products can cost that much on a yearly basis.
  - setpatchaddress 5y ago
    That seems like an ahistorical objection. $199 was a very reasonable price for a powerful dev tool in 1988. A lot of software at the time cost much, much more. Look up historical prices for just about any contemporaneous commercial software. You can still argue they would have done better in the long run by marketing themselves as "Turbo Smalltalk" at $69.99. But that's a different argument than "wow that's way overpriced," which simply wasn't the case.
    - igouy 5y ago
      "The list price is $150 each for Turbo Pascal, Turbo C, and for a bundle containing both Turbo Assembler and Turbo Debugger." p8 October 1988 https://books.google.com/books?id=WSBVAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA18-PA8 https://books.google.com/books?id=WSBVAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA18-PA8 Smalltalk/V 286 included source-code debugger, bit mapped WIMP for MS-DOS, BitBlt graphics, … Turbo Pascal + debugger already cost more.
hota_mazi 5y ago
The animated screenshots on the website pretty much indicate that the Pharo GUI is still non native and looking very dated and ugly.
- xkriva11 5y ago
  Most tools were modified to use Spec framework so they can use the native look (using GTK) as well as the non-native one. (plus, in future, Web and Console backends). This transition should be finished in the next release.
codesnik 5y ago
hm, does Pharo have native-looking GUI now?
- xkriva11 5y ago
  see this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27843214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27843214
- zabzonk 5y ago
  Well, let's say "better" :-) There was a Smalltalk with a native Windows GUI (Dolphin) but the developers couldn't seem to make any money out if it.
  - igouy 5y ago
    "ParcPlace VisualWorks Smalltalk emulates all the supported operating systems GUIs in Smalltalk … Digitalk (now ParcPlace) Visual Smalltalk uses more of the underlying operating system GUI, for better performance but at the price of only supporting a common subset of GUI controls … IBM Smalltalk maps the Motif GUI widgets onto the underlying operating system widgets.This means you get a very rich kit to build your GUI, but the widgets operate at near native speed. You have the best of both worlds." p87 "VisualAge for Smalltalk" 1997 http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/4instantiations/sg244828.pdf http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/4instantiations/sg24482... aka What's the difference between Swing and SWT,
xkriva11 5y ago
It has basically two reasons. First, it is to prevent conflicts like: "Pharo is Smalltalk, look, it is written on its web page! How do dare you to change this? You are allowed to improve this if and only if all the other Smalltalk implementations do that too!" [exaggerating]. Pharo has many differences from standard Smalltalk (different File API, class definitions, traits, slots, small grammar changes...). The second reason is that the general knowledge about Smalltalk is very poor, and most people only remember that it is something old and long dead. Try to sell a dead fish.
- a2800276 5y ago
  Interesting, thank you. It still seems weird to me, though. I feel Smalltalk is mostly mentioned with positive connotations (as opposed to, say Cobol) and would guess more people have heard of Smalltalk than Pharo and it would help orientation. So I was assuming something nefarious :) Is there an overview of the differences somewhere?
  - xkriva11 5y ago
    I sometimes ask young programmers or people interested in old computers if they know Smalltalk and what they think of it. Try it too, you might be surprised at the results. I don't know of any such list of differences, and I don't think it's of much use either.There is ANSI Smalltalk, which is very limited and most implementations go well beyond its scope, so you have to compare each implementation separately anyway.

igouy 5y ago

> cost of ST licences back when was beyond a joke March 7, 1988 "Smalltalk/V 286 is available now and costs $199.95" https://books.google.com/books?id=CD8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=digitalk+smalltalk+v/286&source=bl&ots=jg-JNM2df5&sig=zCZ6zSeRV1zcLMT_VhaK49_YWkQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CFIQ6AEwB2oVChMIh-Xi5qS9xwIVkCWICh1taQpK#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=CD8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=P... > nasty-looking non-native GUIs The "non-native GUI" was quite important because Smalltalk was running on MS-DOS — not on MS-Windows.

varjag 5y ago
Well $200 in 1980s is something like $500 today. I don't think I own any piece of software costing that much.
- igouy 5y ago
  And … ? Dec 1988, MS Word 5.0 for MS-DOS, $450.
- goatlover 5y ago
  Adobe products can cost that much on a yearly basis.
- setpatchaddress 5y ago
  That seems like an ahistorical objection. $199 was a very reasonable price for a powerful dev tool in 1988. A lot of software at the time cost much, much more. Look up historical prices for just about any contemporaneous commercial software. You can still argue they would have done better in the long run by marketing themselves as "Turbo Smalltalk" at $69.99. But that's a different argument than "wow that's way overpriced," which simply wasn't the case.
  - igouy 5y ago
    "The list price is $150 each for Turbo Pascal, Turbo C, and for a bundle containing both Turbo Assembler and Turbo Debugger." p8 October 1988 https://books.google.com/books?id=WSBVAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA18-PA8 https://books.google.com/books?id=WSBVAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA18-PA8 Smalltalk/V 286 included source-code debugger, bit mapped WIMP for MS-DOS, BitBlt graphics, … Turbo Pascal + debugger already cost more.

hota_mazi 5y ago

The animated screenshots on the website pretty much indicate that the Pharo GUI is still non native and looking very dated and ugly.

xkriva11 5y ago
Most tools were modified to use Spec framework so they can use the native look (using GTK) as well as the non-native one. (plus, in future, Web and Console backends). This transition should be finished in the next release.

codesnik 5y ago

hm, does Pharo have native-looking GUI now?

xkriva11 5y ago
see this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27843214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27843214
zabzonk 5y ago
Well, let's say "better" :-) There was a Smalltalk with a native Windows GUI (Dolphin) but the developers couldn't seem to make any money out if it.
- igouy 5y ago
  "ParcPlace VisualWorks Smalltalk emulates all the supported operating systems GUIs in Smalltalk … Digitalk (now ParcPlace) Visual Smalltalk uses more of the underlying operating system GUI, for better performance but at the price of only supporting a common subset of GUI controls … IBM Smalltalk maps the Motif GUI widgets onto the underlying operating system widgets.This means you get a very rich kit to build your GUI, but the widgets operate at near native speed. You have the best of both worlds." p87 "VisualAge for Smalltalk" 1997 http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/4instantiations/sg244828.pdf http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/4instantiations/sg24482... aka What's the difference between Swing and SWT,

xkriva11 5y ago

It has basically two reasons. First, it is to prevent conflicts like: "Pharo is Smalltalk, look, it is written on its web page! How do dare you to change this? You are allowed to improve this if and only if all the other Smalltalk implementations do that too!" [exaggerating]. Pharo has many differences from standard Smalltalk (different File API, class definitions, traits, slots, small grammar changes...). The second reason is that the general knowledge about Smalltalk is very poor, and most people only remember that it is something old and long dead. Try to sell a dead fish.

a2800276 5y ago
Interesting, thank you. It still seems weird to me, though. I feel Smalltalk is mostly mentioned with positive connotations (as opposed to, say Cobol) and would guess more people have heard of Smalltalk than Pharo and it would help orientation. So I was assuming something nefarious :) Is there an overview of the differences somewhere?
- xkriva11 5y ago
  I sometimes ask young programmers or people interested in old computers if they know Smalltalk and what they think of it. Try it too, you might be surprised at the results. I don't know of any such list of differences, and I don't think it's of much use either.There is ANSI Smalltalk, which is very limited and most implementations go well beyond its scope, so you have to compare each implementation separately anyway.