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by AdmiralAsshat 2705 days ago
The Pharo website has zero mention of its relation to Smalltalk, although the Wiki article calls it a dialect.

So how close are the two in reality? Is the syntax from your standard Smalltalk-80 textbook largely portable/compatible to Pharo, or is Pharo merely "inspired" by Smalltalk?
3 comments
zestyping 2705 days ago
Why isn't Smalltalk mentioned on the front page?

It seems that simply mentioning that Pharo is based on Smalltalk would immediately convey a lot of useful information to people who are new to Pharo.

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ben-coman 2705 days ago
Squeak is directly descended from ST-80. Ten years ago Pharo forked from Squeak due to conflict around adding features outside the ANSI standard. Pharo wanted to distinguish itself from Smalltalk to avoid constraint by the standard so minimises mention of it. But Essentially Pharo is Smalltalk plus...
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emaringolo 2705 days ago
The syntax is similar, and for the most part, compatible. Pharo's syntax has a few extra extensions, but nothing incompatible.

But Pharo's is inspired by Smalltalk, and I myself consider it Smalltalk, but the purpose of the detachment is to not be constrained by having to continue being Smalltalk.

E.g. in Pharo instance variables are first class objects (called "Slots").

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