It shines when one puts the tools together.

e.g. Roassal + GTInspector + PetitParser can do a ton. Coupled with Zinc (HTTP Client + Server) and XMLPullParser, data can be brought in easily.

One key thing here is that there is much less accidental complexity that on other platforms when coding.

The continuum between coding/running/debugging/understanding is really sweet. It is more of an experience of making progress in much less time than on other platforms.

I have been coding on quite a number of other stacks but Pharo is really giving more to my soul, so to speak.

Also, the whole thing is MIT and no big corp owns any of it. So, we shape our own future. The community is smaller but really inspiring and it all made me a much better dev.

And it makes my thinking cleaner. Not a small feat.