Like Java, it runs on a VM. This VM works on the mainstream OS.
One of the peculiarity of Pharo (and Smalltalk) is that when you shutdown the system, you can persist the whole system on disk (called "the image"). Next time you open it, you start exactly where you left.
All the development tools are mixed with your code. There is no differences between the coding time and runtime (i.e., you code at runtime). If you are familiar with IRB in Ruby, imagine a GUI running in IRB.
This means that it is hard to see the limit between your code and Pharo's code. Pharo 7 seems to bring a bootstrap process where you can build images from scratch. This is an interesting evolution that will vastly improve the development/reproducability/deployment story.
One of the peculiarity of Pharo (and Smalltalk) is that when you shutdown the system, you can persist the whole system on disk (called "the image"). Next time you open it, you start exactly where you left.
All the development tools are mixed with your code. There is no differences between the coding time and runtime (i.e., you code at runtime). If you are familiar with IRB in Ruby, imagine a GUI running in IRB.
This means that it is hard to see the limit between your code and Pharo's code. Pharo 7 seems to bring a bootstrap process where you can build images from scratch. This is an interesting evolution that will vastly improve the development/reproducability/deployment story.