[vidarh]

Ruby is a language, not an environment. So why are you comparing Smalltalk environment to a language? (this applies largely to the original article as well - if you want to compare languages, compare languages; if you want to compare environments, compare environments).

There are Ruby environments that provide fairly deep introspection and live changes to a system, like Pry. It's just not the main way of doing things. For a reason: It's not the way most developers are used to working.

[seandenigris]

You are asking to force the question into an artificially created box that doesn't help us get to the truth. The Smalltalk experience is naturally - and more fairly - compared to Ruby as an experience.

They are both tools, and thus we're primarily concerned with their utility, not inherent value. One wants to know: how will these tools help me to achieve my goals. The answer is that the turtles-all-the-way-down experience of Smalltalk helps devs achieve those goals more quickly, easily, and joyfully.

p.s. Thanks for pointing out Pry! I didn't know about it and it looks really cool :) As it relates to this conversation though, a more-advanced repl is stone-age technology.