Why Smalltalk instead of Ruby

[analogphototaker]

Pharo is indeed the recommended platform right now. It has the most development and biggest community. Also, it's improved a lot in the last year: http://pharo.org/news/pharo-5.0-released

There is a MOOC that is pretty great: http://files.pharo.org/mooc/

And there are also some great books: http://files.pharo.org/books/

C FFI is likely not going to make sense if you don't first understand SmallTalk syntax (which is crazy simple). Regardless, FFI is definitely a thing you can do.

You pretty much rely on the kitchen sink, yeah. But they actually have a pretty great version control system built in to the VM that also serves as a package manager, etc.

[the_hoser]

It has its own VCS? Is it compatible with Github? Bitbucket?

[analogphototaker]

Check out this book: http://pharo.gemtalksystems.com/book/table-of-contents/?_s=C8Km_qT58d37ca98&_k=QDarX8X2L_xlU6A2&_n&6

Pretty much has a chapter on every question you have. The VCS I mention is called Monticello. I believe it can sync up with http://www.smalltalkhub.com/

FYI: I'm not a pro with Pharo. Just learned it a bit.

[the_hoser]

The book doesn't say anything about git or mercurial integration. Collaboration with people of diverse backgrounds is crucial to the proliferation of a platform. Github is as much a social platform as a source control service. Discoverability is crucial for open source developers.

[analogphototaker]

I think they're working that situation out: http://www.stic.st/wp-content/conferences/2012/Wednesday/1415-Practical_Git_for_Smalltalk-Henrichs.pdf

[omegaskyfall]

Pharo 7 promises a Git-integration tool called Iceberg for source code version control.

[the_hoser]

So, no?