Can Pharo meet all your computing needs?

Sounds like the Dynabook goal rather overlaps with that of Lisp Machines. The idea of a single system that allows you to modify any part at runtime, inspect any part, or drop into a debugger anywhere is extremely powerful and wonderful to work with.

Emacs gets quite close to this, but... it's Emacs lisp. I've used worse languages, but elisp was not intended to be a general purpose application programming language. Smalltalk is, which is why Pharo excites me.

Once you start 'living' in a single environment, you customise it to meet your needs and can contribute the reusable parts to the wider community. This produces a virtuous circle of the tools getting better. A package manager that makes it easy to distribute your work is crucial in this.

Sounds like the first step for me is to start using the Pharo file browser and command shell and to see how it fits my workflow :)

Hi Wilfred and welcome,

I have been lurking at the Smalltalk/Squeak community like from ten years when I used Etoys, Bots Inc and Scratch to teach newbies an introductory course on "informatics" (which has a part related with programming) and after a while I got here at the Pharo community, where I lurked here for a while but now, because of my PhD research, which is related with mutual modification between communities and digital artifacts, I try to explore Pharo as a medium for exploring some ideas about that and I think it can't be done without a first hands on experience on the environment and the actual code writing, so I'm trying to become a more active participant, but I'm still a newbie. Anyway, from newbie to newbie, welcome again.

About the dynabook and its vision I would recommend "Tracing the Dynabook: A Study of Technocultural Transformations" by John W Maxwell at [1]. In fact, on this book Maxwell claims that Smalltalk didn't loose (in popularity and defining the common computer experience) against another programming languages, it lost against the Operative System paradigm, and its idea of having different small tools connected mainly by pipes and files, mainly non-interactive, mainly binary and without any unifying conceptual framework beyond files and pipes. I think he's right.

[1] http://tkbr.ccsp.sfu.ca/dynabook/


Besides SqueakNOS you can see some ideas inspired in Smalltak and the Dynabook vision in the EtoileOS[2]. The authors are not trying to repeat the OS paradigm, but trying to rethink it from a Smalltalk perspective, with practical considerations about bridging what we have now in C [3] and the apps world [4] with what can be done/thought from a Dynabook inspired vision.

[2] http://etoileos.com/
[3] http://etoileos.com/news/archive/2012/08/19/1308/
[4] http://etoileos.com/news/archive/2012/04/30/1825/

Regarding myself and my own approach to make this ideas viable in my current context, specifically on what is concerned with creation of rich documentation and something like a modest "Dynabooklet", I'm trying to get the writing experience of Leo[5], which is an outliner that has the property of making it's own tree structure available to make it scriptable in Python (any node of the tree can contain python code which can traverse and process the tree in particular ways) to something similar in Smalltalk, with the advantage of an integrated and explorable inmersive dynamic environment. My idea is to make and environment where I can write my own PhD thesis[7] (at this moment I'm writing it with Leo + LaTeX with advances like this [8]), but also to teach some Data Narratives[9] and Indie Web[10][11]. I'm trying to combine Python and Smalltalk in modest ways or at least to create some cross-pollination of ideas.

[5] http://leoeditor.com/
[6] http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~Offray/Ubakye/
[7] http://mutabit.com/offray/static/blog/output/posts/la-forma-en-que-escribo-para-el-doctorado.html
[8] http://mutabit.com/deltas/repos.fossil/doctorado-offray/doc/tip/Tesis/ExamenCandidatura/Escrito2/luna-offray-ecologia-de-saberes-en-diseno.pdf
[9] http://mutabit.com/offray/static/blog/output/posts/borrachos-bochinche-futbol.html
[10] http://mutabit.com/offray/static/blog/output/posts/indie-science-indie-web-opengarage-science.html
[11] http://indiewebcamp.com/


So, I think Pharo can bootstrap the dynabook vision of and environment for your computer needs and make it viable in different ways, even for a single person or a small community if this is connected with the rest of the environment and experiences on what we have now. My examples are just humble approaches on my attempts to do that, but I hope that this can show you a lot of interesting stuff that can be done as a novice or as an expert with the help of the community and the persons here.

Cheers,

Offray

On 08/25/2014 06:33 PM, Wilfred Hughes wrote:

Sounds like the Dynabook goal rather overlaps with that of Lisp Machines. The
idea of a single system that allows you to modify any part at runtime, inspect
any part, or drop into a debugger anywhere is extremely powerful and wonderful
to work with.

Emacs gets quite close to this, but... it's Emacs lisp. I've used worse
languages, but elisp was not intended to be a general purpose application
programming language. Smalltalk is, which is why Pharo excites me.

Once you start 'living' in a single environment, you customise it to meet your
needs and can contribute the reusable parts to the wider community. This
produces a virtuous circle of the tools getting better. A package manager that
makes it easy to distribute your work is crucial in this.

Sounds like the first step for me is to start using the Pharo file browser and
command shell and to see how it fits my workflow :)


On 25 August 2014 15:15, S Krish <[hidden email]
[hidden email]> wrote:


     " The Dynabook SW architecture must be open so that owners can safely
     install functionality ('apps')  that is available in a marketplace. (The
     i-pad with its hardware and its marketplace for apps is at the back of my
     mind.)"


     Can the intent be expanded a bit more. Is this an intent to have a Pharo /
     ST / Dynabook based marketplace or more extensive ?



     On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 3:33 PM, Trygve Reenskaug <[hidden email]
     [hidden email]> wrote:

         I don't think the current Smalltalk architecture can meet all your
         computing needs because security isn't part of its core and because it
         is inconceivable that all the necessary programs can be developed within
         its boundaries.

         Like several people I met at ESUG, my goal is the Dynabook and the
         Dynabook shall, by definition, meet all your needs. A Dynabook must be
         safe so that its owner is protected from hackers and other evildoers.
         The Dynabook SW architecture must be open so that owners can safely
         install functionality ('apps')  that is available in a marketplace. (The
         i-pad with its hardware and its marketplace for apps is at the back of
         my mind.)

         I can only see one path from here to there. Start from e.g., Pharo and
         simplify it to create a Dynabook architecture with owner programming and
         with opening for safely adding functionality safely ad lib.  (I suppose
         this is an ST based OS?)

         Any takers?
         --Trygve



         On 23.08.2014 17:04, Wilfred Hughes wrote:

        Hi folks

        I've been playing with Pharo recently, and really enjoying writing
        some programs in the Pharo environment.

        As a result, I've been wondering if I can use Pharo the way I would
        use Emacs, as an environment for doing everything.

        For example, can I use Pharo to:

        * Send emails to this mailing list?
        * Use IRC?
        * Start Bash?
        * Read the Pharo documentation (e.g. Pharo By Example)?

        If these things do exist, how do I discover them? Is there a package
        manager I can use to find new tools I can use in Pharo?