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The Pharo Advantage: what is it for you?

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philippeback

The Pharo Advantage: what is it for you?

Hello,

As part of the defense of a budget and technology choices, what would you guys list as a key advantage of using Pharo for creating software solutions?

My current stack is:

Pharo 2.0

Seaside 3 (including Seaside-REST)

Magritte 3

Twitter Bootstrap

+ a couple of data storage stuff (DBXTalk, Phriak, Voyage)

+ STOMP

+ Amber if needed

I've been test driving the whole stack for a while and even if there are some quirks, it looks like good enough for what I want to achieve.

Now, my question: what is the Pharo advantage you would put forward vs other choices (like LAMP, Java, Rails etc).

I am aware of what those could be but I am more looking for what makes you tick when using the technology (like: "it is fun to work with", "no more Java for me, due to ...", "speeds dev time by ...", "not NSA-backdoor-enabled")

This is the kind of thing we should have in stock for helping the Consortium members get buy in from people giving a yes on budgets.

Thanks in advance for your help! (BTW, I am going to use this on monday morning for defending our position on a significant project).

Phil

Stéphane Ducasse

Re: [Pharo-users] The Pharo Advantage: what is it for you?

> Hello,
>
> As part of the defense of a budget and technology choices, what would you guys list as a key advantage of using Pharo for creating software solutions?

- Pool of accessible experts
- Pool of other software solution developers
- Full stack access, no need to wait for another release to address a problem.
- Growth of the community
- Consortium
- I saw in one bank using Pharo (not public unfortunately) putting stability of the language

> My current stack is:
>
> Pharo 2.0
> Seaside 3 (including Seaside-REST)
> Magritte 3
> Twitter Bootstrap
>
> + a couple of data storage stuff (DBXTalk, Phriak, Voyage)
> + STOMP
>
> + Amber if needed
>
> I've been test driving the whole stack for a while and even if there are some quirks, it looks like good enough for what I want to achieve.
>
> Now, my question: what is the Pharo advantage you would put forward vs other choices (like LAMP, Java, Rails etc).
>
> I am aware of what those could be but I am more looking for what makes you tick when using the technology (like: "it is fun to work with", "no more Java for me, due to ...", "speeds dev time by ...", "not NSA-backdoor-enabled")
>
> This is the kind of thing we should have in stock for helping the Consortium members get buy in from people giving a yes on budgets.
>
> Thanks in advance for your help! (BTW, I am going to use this on monday morning for defending our position on a significant project).
>
> Phil

Esteban A. Maringolo

Re: [Pharo-users] The Pharo Advantage: what is it for you?

2013/8/23 Stéphane Ducasse <[hidden email]>:

>> Hello,
>>
>> As part of the defense of a budget and technology choices, what would you guys list as a key advantage of using Pharo for creating software solutions?
>
> - Pool of accessible experts
> - Pool of other software solution developers
> - Full stack access, no need to wait for another release to address a problem.
> - Growth of the community
> - Consortium
> - I saw in one bank using Pharo (not public unfortunately) putting stability of the language

I think Phil was referring to the technological/frameworks stack.
Sadly, IMHO, almost every item you mention is surpassed by other
non-mainstream or "trendy" technologies/stacks (JS, Erlang, Scala and
others).

One thing that, for me is a key differentiator is:
- how easy is to change code on the fly
- really complete debugging environment
- objects all the way down
- Easiness of the syntax (small, compact and homogeneous)

Frameworks come and go, but I really like and feel like an advantage
(even though the first two are not "Pharo exclusive"):
- Seaside REST (pragmas are really convenient way to define it)
- Magritte 3
- Zinc

I want to take a look into STOMP, but didin't have time yet. I also like Voyage.

Regards,

Esteban A. Maringolo

Sven Van Caekenberghe-2

Re: The Pharo Advantage: what is it for you?

In reply to this post by philippeback

On 23 Aug 2013, at 10:32, "[hidden email]" <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> As part of the defense of a budget and technology choices, what would you guys list as a key advantage of using Pharo for creating software solutions?
>
> My current stack is:
>
> Pharo 2.0
> Seaside 3 (including Seaside-REST)
> Magritte 3
> Twitter Bootstrap
>
> + a couple of data storage stuff (DBXTalk, Phriak, Voyage)
> + STOMP
>
> + Amber if needed
>
> I've been test driving the whole stack for a while and even if there are some quirks, it looks like good enough for what I want to achieve.
>
> Now, my question: what is the Pharo advantage you would put forward vs other choices (like LAMP, Java, Rails etc).
>
> I am aware of what those could be but I am more looking for what makes you tick when using the technology (like: "it is fun to work with", "no more Java for me, due to ...", "speeds dev time by ...", "not NSA-backdoor-enabled")
>
> This is the kind of thing we should have in stock for helping the Consortium members get buy in from people giving a yes on budgets.
>
> Thanks in advance for your help! (BTW, I am going to use this on monday morning for defending our position on a significant project).
>
> Phil

A small team with sufficient real world software development experience, domain knowledge and practical Pharo experience can be an order of a magnitude more efficient than a larger team using a traditional approach and classic technology.

Pharo is a uniquely dynamic environment that is both very simple and very powerful. It allows its developers to focus on what really matters, without the complexities of other tools, while remaining very flexible. It is one of the few languages that are really object oriented and offer access to readable source code, all the way down.

The ecosystem around Pharo is strong enough to be able to deliver already existing solutions as well as the resources to build new solutions to specific problems.

It is an environment that attracts individuals that deeply care about doing software development correctly.

;-)

Sven

Louis Andriese

Re: The Pharo Advantage: what is it for you?

In reply to this post by philippeback

By far the best language to create domain specific extensions / DLS's. This enables both reusability of business objects and early communication with business on the domain model in a scrum environment.

Easy to debug, enabling short-feedback test and re-test cycles

Easy to refactor, enabling long-term maintainability and organic growth of the application in a "ship-often" environment.

In short: fast prototyping and agile development, while at the same time making sure that you get maintainable code that can scale with your domain model for years to come.

At least, that's what I experience in my (VA Smalltalk) team.

Louis Andriese
Program manager
Delta Lloyd Group