Deep into Pharo

Study overview of the reviewed opening

The preface emphasises that Pharo is more than the syntax of a programming language. It includes an extensible environment together with libraries and frameworks for activities such as modelling, networking, scripting and visualisation. The authors connect its object-oriented model with exploratory work in a live system.

As a second volume, the book assumes a reading path that extends beyond the introduction provided by Pharo by Example. Its first part concerns libraries; the next concerns source code and package management. Framework chapters then introduce tools for building interfaces and visualisations. A language-focused part examines mechanisms such as exceptions, blocks and numbers, while the final part turns to development tooling.

This structure matters because effective work in the environment draws on several kinds of knowledge at once. A programmer may need the language model, an available library, a package-management tool and a way to inspect or profile the result. The preface also documents a collaborative community of contributors. The page’s overview does not test the examples against current releases or assign complete coverage to later chapters. Readers should use the hosted edition’s own references and verify the software version when working through its technical material.

Book contents

1. Zero Configuration Scripts and Command-Line Handlers
2. Files with FileSystem
3. Sockets
4. The Settings Framework
5. Regular Expressions in Pharo
6. Versioning Your Code with Monticello
7. Gofer: Scripting Package Loading
8. Managing Projects with Metacello
9. Glamour
10. Agile Visualization with Roassal
11. Scripting Visualizations with Mondrian
12. Handling Exceptions
13. Blocks: a Detailed Analysis
14. Exploring Little Numbers
15. Fun with Floats
16. Profiling Applications
17. PetitParser: Building Modular Parsers
18. Biographies

Questions for study

The following prompts are Academic Master’s editorial material.

• Why describe Pharo as an environment as well as a language?
• How do libraries, frameworks and development tools differ in the book’s structure?
• What version information would you record before reproducing an example?

Sources and coverage

Preface read in full (PDF pages 9–11); first-edition title, copyright and contents checked.

Source edition · Source licence