First, congrats to the Pharo team, I mean they do a lot of work.
But a singular testament of Pharo is that it this amazing environment, with all this heritage, tickling many of the more popular "CS folk" buttons.
It's an active, busy project, with lots of committers.
And yet, "nobody" uses it.
The Pharo folks live in their sandbox, eating their dog food, making Pharo more Pharo than ever, but it seems to only be uplifting folks making Pharo. Pharo is built for Pharo makers to make Pharo, and they continue make Pharo a better place for them to live and do their work.
I'm certainly not going say that its because of X or Y or Z. Just that, it "is". It is "not used" in the large. Sure, folks use it, they have their success stories like any project does to some extent. But the larger "hive mind" of the "internet" hasn't seemed to have caught on, or have tasted it and moved on to something else.
So, at 30,000 feet, despite all their work, something is not quite clicking.
> The Pharo folks live in their sandbox, eating their dog food, making Pharo more Pharo than ever, but it seems to only be uplifting folks making Pharo.
Some of this is just down to the philosophy of Smalltalks. To program in a Smalltalk is to make Smalltalk. You can't really separate the creation of the system from the creation of the application(s).
With that in mind, it's hardly surprising that few people who aren't contributing to Pharo use Pharo—it may not be just that it hasn't found mainstream appeal (which is true) but also that most people who pick it up and start using it seriously end up becoming contributors.
But a singular testament of Pharo is that it this amazing environment, with all this heritage, tickling many of the more popular "CS folk" buttons.
It's an active, busy project, with lots of committers.
And yet, "nobody" uses it.
The Pharo folks live in their sandbox, eating their dog food, making Pharo more Pharo than ever, but it seems to only be uplifting folks making Pharo. Pharo is built for Pharo makers to make Pharo, and they continue make Pharo a better place for them to live and do their work.
I'm certainly not going say that its because of X or Y or Z. Just that, it "is". It is "not used" in the large. Sure, folks use it, they have their success stories like any project does to some extent. But the larger "hive mind" of the "internet" hasn't seemed to have caught on, or have tasted it and moved on to something else.
So, at 30,000 feet, despite all their work, something is not quite clicking.