I'm not a huge smalltalk user, but I really really like Pharo. It feels much more developer friendly than the default Squeak VM.

Another nice recent Squeak distribution is Cuis, which takes quite another approach, trying to slim down the system to its basics, going back to the SmallTalk roots. Looks quite interesting for those interested in learning stuff, and doesn't try to go the futile way of trying to emulate "normal" operating systems: http://www.jvuletich.org/Cuis/Index.html

Is this basically Squeak with an "uncanny valley" OS X theme?

It's Squeak with a better default look and feel and more pragmatic, mature development goals.

IIRC it's removed some of the non-development related stuff as well (like etoys).

The sooner they can get rid of all the horrible Squeak graphics the better. Was playing with Pharo last night and, unfortunately, it still doesn't take long to run into Squeak aesthetics.

We are working hard on it. We need more people to help us. Feel free to join.

Thanks Damien. Pharo is definitely a much-needed project.

So will it run seaside?

Seaside is developed in Pharo, so yes.

shows how much I know. Thanks.

out of curiosity, why do we need a GUI to go with a runtime?

Typical Smalltalk environments are interesting because the runtime and the development tools are very tightly integrated (or "coupled" depending on your point of view). This affects the way the development and debugging tools interact with programs. For example, you can change a program just by modifying elements of its UI while it's running.

For a Smalltalk without a graphical environment by default, try GNU Smalltalk: http://smalltalk.gnu.org/

It runs on an iPhone? Odd; last I checked, the SDK's license forbade compilers and interpreters.

Looking at their success stories page, this app: http://www.mobilewikiserver.com/Welcome.html

appears to have been created in Pharo and has a little "Available on the App Store" badge.

Apple really only seems to reject apps that allow you to get access to an interpreter/compiler, in a way that makes them nervous (flash).

Maybe it's targeted at people who like to write unshippable software. But seriously, I think Apple only forbids shipping something called an interpreter or an interpreter that loads code over the Net.

What happened to the Squeak wxWidgets binding?