February 2026 - Pharo-users

iPad Pharo test release
by Aaron Wohl March 2, 2026

March 2, 2026

Pharo 13 for iPad in the test Apple Store (open in the Apple TestFlight app); Phone or Mac https://testflight.apple.com/join/kGmPQFr9 Due to Appleâs no JIT, it's not snappy. But maybe it's still useful? Source https://github.com/avwohl/iospharo about 100K lines of new source code. This is my first venture into using Pharo. I could use advice on where this project fits in Pharo/Smalltalk land. In the early 80s, I used the Xerox Parc Alto at Carnegie Mellon to run Smalltalk. I got laid off, went on a cruise, sat down in a beach chair with LEARN PHARO and an iPad. But, no Pharo for iPad. So I did the natural thing and told Claude Code to port Pharo to iPad. 54 days and 1347 commits later, out popped a usable iPad app. I do have a background in compilers, working on the Production Quality Compiler project at CMU in the early 1980s, mostly on lexers. But I didnât write any code for this. I mostly told CLAUDE a few times a day stop doing workarounds, do what the real VM does, and thatâs a workaround. CLAUDE would never have succeeded I think if I hadnât started insisting a focus on getting the test suite to pass rather than the app to work. The main snag using the real VM was encoding the encoding of type info in the high bits of pointers for immediate types. It seemed simple to me to shift the type info to the low 3 bits. But Claude could not get the real VM to stop looking in the high bits; perhaps I should have pushed harder on that. But I had always heard how easy it was to port Smalltalk, so I just went with a new VM with the type info in the low bits. Loading a standard image translates the addresses. The other issue was that Apple forbids JIT on iPad. So this new VM has no JIT. Issues: - Should this be a separate VM? Should I push harder on getting the standard VM to work with type info in the low bits and no JIT? Even if that would be better, is it worth the bother now that this works? - I donât want to suck up the PharoSmalltalk name in the Apple stores if it causes offense. I can call it VibeTalk or something to leave the name free for a hand-coded version. Or move off the name if a real contender ever shows. - Without JIT, is it too slow to bother releasing? Is there some other optimization that could bridge the gap if it is too slow? - Are there any users who can give the iPad version a really good workout in real work? The VM passes the test suite. But it just started working on the iPad today. There will be UI issues. - On the iphone the menu bar is cut off, and the welcome window is mostly off the screen. The menu bar layout is in the image, not the VM. I am not sure the VM should work around it. Should these be fixed in the image to have a multi-line menu bar as needed, and reshape initial window layouts on phones? If so is anyone willing to do the Smalltalk side or help me do it (I have written mostly other languages)

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How to make a TextMorph editable
by Jim Rosenberg Feb. 25, 2026

Feb. 25, 2026

I am a rank newbie to Pharo, but have been using Squeak to create interactive content for many years now, and am trying to extrapolate my Squeak experience to Pharo. Under Squeak, the following code creates a new Text Morph which is immediately editable: (TextMorph new initialize contents: 'Hello World') openInWorld When I put this code into a Pharo Playground and click the Do it all button, the text appears in the World, when the cursor is moved over the text it changes to the "I-bar" expected for editing, but nothing works. What do I have to do to get it to be editable? I'm guessing maybe handleEdit: with a suitable block -- well what, actually? Is this documented somewhere? Also: Under Squeak the debug halo includes a choice "save morph in file". Is there a way to do this in Pharo? Is is possible to save a morph in Squeak and then load it into Pharo? -Thanks in advance, Jim

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"Presentation at ESUG'25" â New blog post on all: objects all: theTime
by Koen De Hondt Feb. 24, 2026

Feb. 24, 2026

Dear Pharo users and developers, The Pharo team has posted the recorded presentations of ESUG 2025 on YouTube <https://www.youtube.com/@esugboard/videos>. I collected links to the slides and the video of my presentation about Hera in a short blog post. https://all-objects-all-the-time.st/#/blog/posts/21 Best regards, Koen

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Pharo accepted for the GSOC 2026
by Sebastian Jordan Feb. 24, 2026

Feb. 24, 2026

Dear all, We are happy to announce that Pharo Consortium has been selected for Google Summer of Code 2026! This is an exciting opportunity for us to collaborate with talented students on open-source projects throughout the summer. The contributor application period is March 16 â March 31 (18:00 UTC). Accepted contributors will be announced on April 30, and the coding period will officially start on May 25. Please check out our website for detailed information about the application process and project ideas: https://gsoc.pharo.org/ Best regards, Sebastian Jordan On Behalf of the Pharo Consortium

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Fwd: arXiv endorsement request from Kasper Osterbye
by Kasper Osterbye Feb. 21, 2026

Feb. 21, 2026

Cheers all I am trying to get a usable account on arXiv to have a place where I can put some papers on what I am doing as documented experiments. I find arXiv interesting as it will allow me to publish papers. My ambition is to have a place where I can publish them at what I think of as workspace level. For this to work, you need to click on the https://arxiv.org/auth/endorse?x=HNLNOYï¿¼ My first paper is enclosed (the actual thing to read there is the meta-conclusion - page 5). Best regards, Kasper Ãsterbye > Begin forwarded message: > > From: help(a)arxiv.org > Subject: arXiv endorsement request from Kasper Osterbye > Date: 21 February 2026 at 11.34.27 GMT+1 > To: kasper.osterbye(a)gmail.com > > (Kasper Osterbye should forward this email to someone who's registered > as an endorser for the cs.CL (Computation and Language) subject class of > arXiv.) > > Kasper Osterbye requests your endorsement to submit an article to the > cs.CL section of arXiv. To tell us that you would (or would not) like to > endorse this person, please visit the following URL: > > https://arxiv.org/auth/endorse?x=HNLNOY > > If that URL does not work for you, please visit > > http://arxiv.org/auth/endorse.php > > and enter the following six-digit alphanumeric string: > > Endorsement Code: HNLNOY > ï¿¼

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Call for Presentation for ESUG 2026
by stephane ducasse Feb. 20, 2026

Feb. 20, 2026

Hello Happy Smalltalkers Here is the call for presentation for ESUG 2026. The ESUG board is pleased to announce Call for presentations at the 31th ESUG conference to be held in Plovdiv, Bulgaria 7 - 10 July 2026. We are looking for YOUR experience on using Smalltalk. You will have 30 min for presentations and 45-60 min for hand-ons tutorial. The list of topics for the normal talks and tutorials includes, but is not limited to the following: - Micro Services, Container, Cloud, Big Data, - XP practices, Development tools, Experience reports - Model driven development, Web development, Team management - Meta-Modeling, Security, New libraries and frameworks - Educational material, Embedded systems and robotics - SOA and Web services, Interaction with other programming languages - Teaching Pearls - Show us Your Business - Show your business 10 min session (Get prepared!!) ## How to submit? - Submission deadline is 1st of May 2026 - Notification of acceptance will be on done on the fly. Pay attention: the places are limited so do not wait till the last minute to apply. Prospective presenters should submit a Pull Request on *https://github.com/ESUG/esug.github.io/tree/source/2026-Conference/talks>https://github.com/ESUG/esug.github.io/tree/source/2026-Conference/talks* If you do not succeed to do a PR you can send an email to <omar.abedelkader(a)inria.fr> and <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr> with [ESUG2026] in the title = Title: Please follow the template below the email will be automatically processed! = Name: = Email: = Abstract: = Bio: Any presentation not respecting this form will be discarded automatically.

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UKSTUG Meeting: Adrian Soma - VEO: A Live Visual Smalltalk environment - 25 February 2026
by UK Smalltalk Feb. 19, 2026

Feb. 19, 2026

Introducing VEO: A Live Visual Smalltalk that reimagines what a Smalltalk programming environment can be. VEO enables direct visual manipulation of any object and the creation of windowless visual interfaces. It is built around four core principles: all objects are visual; a single infinite zoomable and pannable canvas serves as the workspace; code can be written "in the air" anywhere in that space to send, evaluate and animate messages and live expressions; and live expressions can freely combine symbols, literals and live object references. Adrian Soma began his professional programming career in 1987, with a longstanding focus on the fundamental challenges of programming itself â particularly user interface design and interaction. He first encountered Smalltalk in 1996 and has worked with it ever since. An early project that would prove formative was an interactive chess course application, for which he built a custom graphical object system from scratch. That system became the first seeds of VEO, the Live Visual Smalltalk environment he has been researching and developing since 2006. This will be an online meeting. If you'd like to join us, please sign up in advance on the meeting's Meetup page ( https://www.meetup.com/ukstug/events/312911115/ ) to receive the meeting details.

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AI based test generation
by Kasper Osterbye Feb. 19, 2026

Feb. 19, 2026

Cheers I am at the moment experimenting with getting an AI to write test methods for me. The current results are a mixture of simple and advanced :-) To get started I wanted to write tests for a class that does not go to the web, file or UI, and doing something which is standard, but with no method comments. So the experiments is for the class "Heap". I have not really been successful, but now I have what I see as a breakthrough, and wanted to know if anyone else had the same experience? -- Kasper Here is an example Heap >> upHeap: anIndex "Check the heap upwards for correctness starting at anIndex. Everything below anIndex is ok." | value k kDiv2 tmp | anIndex = 0 ifTrue:[^self]. k := anIndex. value := array at: anIndex. [ (k > 1) and:[self sorts: value before: (tmp := array at: (kDiv2 := k bitShift: -1))] ] whileTrue:[ array at: k put: tmp. self updateObjectIndex: k. k := kDiv2]. array at: k put: value. self updateObjectIndex: k And the test build by AI is this: testUpHeap | arr | "Test upHeap: for index 0, should do nothing" refHeap upHeap: 0. self assert: true. "No error, no change expected" "Set up min-heap sort block" refHeap sortBlock: [ :a :b | a <= b ]. "Test upHeap:1 on single element, no change" arr := Array new: 10. arr at: 1 put: 5. refHeap instVarAt: 1 put: arr. refHeap instVarAt: 2 put: 1. refHeap upHeap: 1. self assert: ((refHeap instVarAt: 1) at: 1) equals: 5. "Test upHeap:2 with swap needed (smaller child)" arr := Array new: 10. arr at: 1 put: 3. arr at: 2 put: 1. refHeap instVarAt: 1 put: arr. refHeap instVarAt: 2 put: 2. refHeap upHeap: 2. self assert: ((refHeap instVarAt: 1) at: 1) equals: 1. self assert: ((refHeap instVarAt: 1) at: 2) equals: 3. "Test upHeap:2 with no swap (larger child)" arr := Array new: 10. arr at: 1 put: 3. arr at: 2 put: 4. refHeap instVarAt: 1 put: arr. refHeap instVarAt: 2 put: 2. refHeap upHeap: 2. self assert: ((refHeap instVarAt: 1) at: 1) equals: 3. self assert: ((refHeap instVarAt: 1) at: 2) equals: 4. "Test upHeap:3 with one swap to root" arr := Array new: 10. arr at: 1 put: 3. arr at: 2 put: 4. arr at: 3 put: 2. refHeap instVarAt: 1 put: arr. refHeap instVarAt: 2 put: 3. refHeap upHeap: 3. self assert: ((refHeap instVarAt: 1) at: 1) equals: 2. self assert: ((refHeap instVarAt: 1) at: 2) equals: 4. self assert: ((refHeap instVarAt: 1) at: 3 )equals: 3. "Test upHeap:4 with multiple swaps" arr := Array new: 10. arr at: 1 put: 1. arr at: 2 put: 3. arr at: 3 put: 2. arr at: 4 put: 0. refHeap instVarAt: 1 put: arr. refHeap instVarAt: 2 put: 4. refHeap upHeap: 4. self assert: ((refHeap instVarAt: 1) at: 1) equals: 0. self assert: ((refHeap instVarAt: 1) at: 2) equals: 1. self assert: ((refHeap instVarAt: 1) at: 3) equals: 2. self assert: ((refHeap instVarAt: 1) at: 4 )equals: 3. And the input to make it doit is AIATest04 new build: Heap >> #upHeap:: I have added a tool call that allows Grok to call and execute Pharo code, so to produce the test, it has executed these calls: ApiToolExpression: Heap compileAllFrom: 'Collections-Sequenceable'. Heap methods select: [:m | m selector = #upHeap:]. Heap instVarNames ApiToolExpression: Heap instVarNames ApiToolExpression: Heap >> #add: sourceCode ApiToolExpression: (Heap >> #add:) sourceCode ApiToolExpression: (Heap >> #reSort) sourceCode ApiToolExpression: Heap new instVarNamed: #indexUpdateBlock

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"Identifying Spec Presenters in Hera" â New blog post on all: objects all: theTime
by Koen De Hondt Feb. 19, 2026

Feb. 19, 2026

Dear Pharo users and developers, I posted a second article in the series about describing Spec application behaviour with Hera. The first post explained how Hera manages open Spec windows. The new post explains how Hera identifies presenters so they can be referenced in Gherkin scenarios. https://all-objects-all-the-time.st/#/blog/posts/20 As always, all feedback is welcome. Happy reading! Ciao, Koen

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Re: [Pharo-dev] Re: [Ann] BPatterns: The rewrite engine at your fingertips
by Denis Kudriashov Feb. 7, 2026

Feb. 7, 2026

Hi Daniel. Quick question: Does this use the same underlying parse nodes, and helper > classes like ParseTreeRewriter, as the old system, just generating them a > different way? If so, I think the value here is as much in the convenience > methods for performing searches and rewrites as the pattern syntaxâso thank > you for that, regardless! Yes, underhood BPatterns is based on the pattern AST nodes and the matching/rewrite machinery. It's just a different DSL to the original engine. There are some changes to better follow my idea but it is not significant. While we're on the subject of rewrite tools, a while back I noticed that I > often wanted to rewrite sequences of statements to a single method call, > where that sequence might recur several times in the same method. This > especially comes up in testsâperhaps I notice that the pattern: self assert: obj foo equals: `#expectedFoo. > self assert: obj bar equals: `#expectedBar. > self assert: obj baz equals: `#expectedBaz. Agree, I have the same feeling about the sequences. And it can be quite confusing when you do not know the internal details. I don't think I will have any time to change this. Ð²Ñ, 3 ÑÐµÐ²Ñ. 2026â¯Ð³. Ð² 23:51, Daniel Slomovits <daniels220(a)gmail.com>: > I love the basic idea, but at a glance, it seems like the syntax rapidly > becomes *much* more verbose than the equivalent using the special pattern > syntax. For simple examples it's more-or-less equivalent, but the with: [ > anyVar ] -> [:pattern | ...] syntax is *very* clunky. > > What I would *really* love to see is an extension to the Compiler, that > allows for mixing the actual pattern syntax directly into code. Perhaps > initiated by a backtick-parenthesis, so you could write: > > (`(``@receiver isNil ifTrue: ``@nilBlock) -> `(``@receiver ifNil: > ``@nilBlock)) rewrite preview > > I'm not even sure this would be all that hardâit would mean adding one new > type of parse node, call it a "pattern literal", delimited by `(), whose > implementation would be very straightforward for the most part, with the > only complication being that pattern blocks (`{}) would have to be > compiled properly in the outer scope. As additional niceties, individual > pattern nodes should ideally be able to appear bare, rather than needing to > be wrapped in `(), and we would want a syntax for "this is a whole-method > pattern" > > On another note, I want to call attention to one thing that BPattern has > going for it that string-literal-based patterns can't (easily) do: modifier > blocks are closures in the method that generated them, so you can do things > like have methods that return a pattern which closes over the arguments of > the method...having trouble coming up with an example off the top of my > head, but this is very powerful. (Well. Actually you *can* do this with > string-based patterns, by reaching in after the pattern is parsed and > editing the modifier block. I've written methods to support the following > syntax: '`@exp' withPatternBlock: [:exp | "this is a real block, although > the expression it wraps was still parsed from a string literal"].) > > Quick question: Does this use the same underlying parse nodes, and helper > classes like ParseTreeRewriter, as the old system, just generating them a > different way? If so, I think the value here is as much in the convenience > methods for performing searches and rewrites as the pattern syntaxâso thank > you for that, regardless! > > While we're on the subject of rewrite tools, a while back I noticed that I > often wanted to rewrite sequences of statements to a single method call, > where that sequence might recur several times in the same method. This > especially comes up in testsâperhaps I notice that the pattern: > > self assert: obj foo equals: `#expectedFoo. > self assert: obj bar equals: `#expectedBar. > self assert: obj baz equals: `#expectedBaz. > > occurs a lot, and those properties are related enough that it makes more > sense to say self verifyFooBarBaz: obj equal: {`#expectedFoo. > `#expectedBar. `#expectedBaz}. (This is a poor example, in truth, but there > are cases where it's much more clearly justified.) By default you can only > get one of these occurrences per run of the rewrite tool, because any > pattern you write has to match the *entire sequence*, and once it has > matched, the entire sequence is disqualified from further matching. I was > able to extend the matching semantics so that a > recurse-into-list-of-statements pattern (i.e. ``@.stmts, > double-backtick-at-period) effectively builds a *new* sequence containing > only the statements it matched, and retries the rule against *that*. It > could definitely stand to be more elegant, but for me it filled an > important hole in the existing capabilities. Is that something anyone would > be interested in helping me dust off and contribute? > > On Tue, Feb 3, 2026 at 1:41â¯PM Denis Kudriashov <dionisiydk(a)gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Hi Richard. >> >> I checked the code and the double backticks are for the recursion mode. >> It forces the search to dive into the current matching node to find more >> cases inside it. >> For example: >> >> (instVar isNil ifTrue: [ 'inside recursion' ]) isNil ifTrue: [ 'outer >> node' ] >> >> The syntax with single backtick will not find the internal "instVar >> isNil" expression. >> >> In BPatterns the recursion mode is enabled by default for the pattern >> variables. So the default mode covers the maximum scope for a search. >> Currently you can't not disable the #recurseInto flag as there is not >> suitable accessor for this. But if it would be there the pattern would like: >> >> [ anyVar isNil ifTrue: anyBlock ] bpattern with: [ anyVar ] -> [:pattern >> | pattern recurseInto: false ] >> >> >> Anyway I adjusted my blog accordingly. Thanks for the attention. >> >> Ð²Ñ, 3 ÑÐµÐ²Ñ. 2026â¯Ð³. Ð² 10:47, Richard O'Keefe <raoknz(a)gmail.com>: >> >>> Thank you. One of the reasons given for introducing BPatterns is a >>> subtle difference between >>> single backticks and double backticks, which is mentioned but not >>> explained in the BPatterns >>> blog entry. The help screen you directed me to does not explain that. >>> >>> Is there any documentation which is *complete* and *proofread*? >>> >>> On Tue, 3 Feb 2026 at 23:16, Denis Kudriashov <dionisiydk(a)gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Yes. There is nice help presenter in the Pharo: >>>> >>>> StRewriterHelpBrowserPresenter new open >>>> >>>> >>>> [image: Screenshot 2026-02-03 at 10.15.45.png] >>>> >>>> >>>> Ð²Ñ, 3 ÑÐµÐ²Ñ. 2026â¯Ð³. Ð² 01:36, Richard O'Keefe <raoknz(a)gmail.com>: >>>> >>>>> Is the "classic" rewriting syntax documented anywhere? >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, 2 Feb 2026 at 22:52, Denis Kudriashov via Pharo-users < >>>>> pharo-users(a)lists.pharo.org> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Hi all. >>>>>> >>>>>> This is the release of *BPatterns* project, one of my old ideas on >>>>>> how to make the rewrite engine usable for scripting. >>>>>> >>>>>> As a quick reminder, here is an example of the classic rewrite-engine >>>>>> matching syntax: >>>>>> >>>>>> *``@receiver isNil ifTrue: ``@nilBlock* >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> In practice, patterns like this usually live inside string >>>>>> literalsâhidden away in lint rules, deprecations, or refactorings. >>>>>> To use them for *manual* code search or rewriting, you typically >>>>>> need a dedicated tool. >>>>>> >>>>>> Now compare that with the same pattern expressed as a *BPattern*: >>>>>> >>>>>> *[ any isNil ifTrue: anyBlock ] bpattern* >>>>>> >>>>>> No special syntax. >>>>>> No magical tools. >>>>>> Just pure Smalltalk. >>>>>> >>>>>> You write a block. >>>>>> You send #bpattern. >>>>>> Youâre done. >>>>>> >>>>>> Every editor understands it. >>>>>> Every tool respects it. >>>>>> >>>>>> Want to see where this pattern appears? >>>>>> >>>>>> * [ any isNil ifTrue: anyBlock ] bpattern browseUsers* >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> [image: Screenshot 2026-01-31 at 12.16.19.png] >>>>>> >>>>>> Want to rewrite all of them? >>>>>> >>>>>> *[[ any isNil ifTrue: anyBlock ] -> [ any ifNil: anyBlock ]] brewrite >>>>>> preview* >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> [image: Screenshot 2026-01-31 at 12.17.57.png] >>>>>> >>>>>> Because *BPatterns are real Smalltalk code*, all development tools >>>>>> work out of the box: >>>>>> syntax highlighting, completion, navigation, refactorings. >>>>>> >>>>>> This is the rewrite engine treated as a *first-class citizen*. >>>>>> >>>>>> Not strings. >>>>>> Not tooling sidecars. >>>>>> Not just for advanced users. >>>>>> >>>>>> *A rewrite engine you can actually use.* >>>>>> * A rewrite engine at your fingertips.* >>>>>> More details are in the blog post: >>>>>> >>>>>> - >>>>>> https://dionisiydk.blogspot.com/2026/02/bpatterns-rewrite-engine-with-small… >>>>>> >>>>>> And follow the project on GitHub: >>>>>> >>>>>> - https://github.com/dionisiydk/BPatterns >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> - >>>>>> >>>>>>

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