sure learning smalltalk can make you a better programmer– learning almost any language can make you a better programmer. (ymmv, especially between languages.) best of all, learning smalltalk can show you what oop couldve been, if not for c++. not that c++ isnt a great language, its just a great language with a kind of oop that probably set the world back for decades.

regarding smalltalk personally, i never liked the “image” idea they had for it. but other than fig, its the only language i know (if you know another, id love to know the name) where math is evaluated left-to-right, instead of using order of operations/operator precedence. it does evaluate parentheses, though.