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Pharo Smalltalk syntax fits on a postcard

Posted on in programming • 166 words • 1 minute read

Of late, I’ve been playing with the language Pharo, which is inspired by SmallTalk.

One interesting thing that I appreciate, and Pharo people boast about is how small its syntax is. So small that it can fit on a postcard. From this small base, an amazingly hackable system has been put together.

“pharo syntax on a card” From these slides.

I made an imperfect attempt to translate it to python, with some ugly workarounds just to make it run, since there are no obvious python equivalents for some things.

import sys
a = object()

class Parent:
    def __len__(self):
        return 1
    
class Foo(Parent):
    def example_with_number(self, x):
        "This method illustrates the complete syntax"
        # aMethodAnnotation <- some static analysis tool may use this
        y: int
        if not (True and not False and None is None):
            breakpoint()
        y = len(self) + super().__len__()
        for e in ['a', a, 'a', 1, 1.0]:
            sys.stdout.write(e.__class__.__name__ + "\n")
            sys.stdout.write(str(e) + "\n")
            sys.stdout.write("\n")
        return x < y

Pharo’s syntax is explained more here. I’m currently working through the Pharo MOOC.