At ESUG 2026, the author presented Pulsar, a new coding-first IDE for Pharo. The talk explored why staying close to the code still matters in the age of generative agents, and where Pulsar is heading next.
The central idea behind Pulsar is fairly simple: programming tools should help programmers understand the system, navigate it, change it, and stay close to the code while doing so. The author argues that generative tools can certainly help, but they do not make these capabilities less important. If anything, they make them more important.
The ESUG presentation was an attempt to explain this direction, show where Pulsar stands today, and offer a glimpse of the author's future plans. The video and slides from the talk, titled "Pulsar: A New Pharo IDE — Growing the Power User in You," are now available online, along with the project itself on the SmallWorks Forge.
Pulsar is still a work in progress, but the author notes that it is already usable. Feedback from the community is explicitly welcomed as development continues.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing