Hello, Mariano's post spurred me to write my reasons of "why to use it", so I started this post.
After many hesitations (I was reluctant to use Squeak) I decided to use Pharo for it and not Dolphin (my favorite Smalltalk), because of several reasons. would be nice to know them hehe sorry...in another thread.
- It's mainly about getting mainstream, and not willing to develop everything from scratch once and again. - At work we've developed everything by our own on VSE/Dolphin, so every time we wanted to do something, we had to build it by ourselves (most of it). We even had a Magritte like framework (years before Magritte existed), persistence, reporting, etc. Now some of them, are very mature frameworks. But I can't borrow any of them for personal use ;-) and don't want to spend a year rewriting the frameworks I've created, contributed to or used at work. - Because what I want to build is going to be web based (and I hope to get it mobile to), anything that runs on linux is good to be considered as a server solution. - So I wanted a rich class library/frameworks, in order to be able to focus on the business logic I want to build. - I wanted to have the latest versions of such frameworks, even when it's getting easier to port them (I did port Swazoo and Seaside in the past), I'm not in the mood to do it now (yes, I'm getting lazy). - Because Dolphin future is uncertain yet, DNG seems to be the next-generation VM/Smalltalk, but I can't wait until it's ready, the conditions clear ($$$) and have the above mentioned points included. - Because I like where Pharo is going to, or seems to be going. I like its mission and how its being managed (releases, issues, patches,tests). It's a solid foundation for any reliable project. - Because nothing really new has come from other really good smalltalks like VAST/Dolphin/VW, everything is getting ported, and eventually a contribution gets back to the source. I see GLASS as an "extension" of Pharo/Squeak, because it was made very compatible, and the edges in contact work very close to each other (GLASS is useless if outdated in relation with Pharo/Squeak). - Because after all, Pharo is also Smalltalk. And I rather choose it before going to other also good stuff (like Rails), or not so good as PHP/Java/DotNet) - I want to focus on the business I'm trying to solve, and forget about everything mentioned above. The only thing that keeps me remembering the stuff above, is I'm still not comfortable as I am with Dolphin, not just because of habit. Dolphin's IDE is really neat, quick, consistent, gets the stuff done and then gets out of your way. You have to use it and do some real work to understand what I'm talking about. But I'm pretty confident Pharo will achieve such level of maturity in the not so far future. I hope it clears my reasoning behind choosing Pharo. Best regards, -- Esteban