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> This power that Smalltalk systems have where the code runs in a GUI that is also the editor/debugger/etc has deeply fascinated me recently.
Have you tried emacs?
> And I'd like to actually understand a tool that I'd have to dive into that deeply, and I think I'll never have the time to truly understand all of the VM, the classes, etc.
I've recently tried to do that myself with Smalltalk via the Glamorous Toolkit[1] (a beautiful, modern Smalltalk environment based on Pharo). Because the programming environment itself comes with a Book teaching it, you can basically just read it as a normal digital book, but with the superpower that everything is editable and interactive: you can change the book itself, every code example is runnable and you can inspect the result objects right there, change it, modify the view for it... they say it's "moldable development" because you almost literally mold the environment as you write your code and learn about the platform.
> And I'd like to be able to create applications that run without shipping the entire Smalltalk VM.
That's why even though I really enjoyed SmallTalk, I can't really see it as anything more than a curiosity. I tried using it at least for my own occasional data exploration because it has good visualisation capabilities and super easy to use HTTP client/JSON parser etc., but the system is so heavy (1GB+ of RAM) that I couldn't justify keeping it open all the time like I do with emacs, on the offchance that I might need to use it for some small task.
Anyway, perhaps that's something you might be interested in.
[1] https://gtoolkit.com/
> And I'd like to be able to create applications that run without shipping the entire Smalltalk VM.
There's always a javascript vm... https://squeak.js.org/
Languages, and about languages, on the BEAM: https://github.com/llaisdy/beam_languages
PS: You might also find this interesting : https://www.grisp.org/