Hello,

On Sat, 19 Oct 2019 at 09:45, M O <miolszewski@outlook.com> wrote:

I��m new to Pharo, and generally, in programming. I decided that my first programming language is going to be Pharo. However I have encountered some issues when I was exploring some examples. I don��t want them to bother me later, so I��d like them to be resolved as soon as possible.

Some info:

OS: Windows 8.1, language Polish, Pharo version: 7 stable 64, Pharo Launcher installed in C:\PharoLauncher, images and VMs located in C:\users\<user>\Documents\...

My Windows account (admin user) username contains non-ASCII character (��). I tested all cases below on account with only ASCII characters (��Administrator��) and they all work just fine. Therefore I strongly suspect the main source of issues is character encoding but I have no idea how to solve it or if it��s actual problem.

I think you found two things that will make it harder to use the Pharo environment:��

Windows 8.1 is not a recent version of an OS, and therefore much of the community who develop Pharo won't be able to guarantee support for it. I suspect it's the cause of the problems #1 and #2 (FFI), but it's hard to know as I don't have Windows 8.1. But as you have seen, some things are working, so some learning might be possible. A possible solution for you could be to run Linux in a VM on your Windows 8 machine and use Pharo for Linux. The Pharo Launcher and other things work in a similar way under Linux, although installing linux is a big distraction from your goal to learn Pharo and programming (which often happens in information technology).��
The use of non-ascii characters in the path (in Windows) has been a source of bugs (e.g.,��https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-launcher/issues/333��but it's not only in Pharo). As you have already found out, you can use another account (maybe you can call it Pharo) without special characters.��

Second thing I��d like to ask is, what are best up to date learning resources for Pharo? I��m mainly concerned about tools. I know a bit about idea of�� real�� OOP (from Alan Kay��s talks). Is Mooc (http://mooc.pharo.org/) and Pharo by Example 5 enough for start? For Mooc, do I need to use Mooc image (It uses a bit outdated Pharo version) or can I use simply Pharo 7?

The MOOC is a great place to start for the content (the videos and the PDFs are helpful). Pharo By Example 5 is also good. There are small differences in the GUI that sometimes trip up new students.

Do you know of exercism.io? There is a Pharo track there, and you can always ask for help with those challenges using the #exercism channel of the Pharo Discord server�� https://discordapp.com/invite/QewZMZa��