Largest Provider of Commercial Smalltalk
Cincom is one of the largest commercial providers of Smalltalk, with twice as many customers and partners as other commercial providers.

Tom Nies

Get Started

Menu

Smalltalk Digest: October Edition

Posted on by Author Jeremy Jordan in Categories Cincom Smalltalk Digest Newsletter Archive

Smalltalk DigestWelcome to the October 2019 edition of the Cincom Smalltalk™ Digest.  In this valuable edition, we will talk about the following:

CUSTOMERS and PARTNERS

  • Suggestions for Our Customers and Partners on Year-End Spending
  • How Can Cincom Better Communicate with the Cincom Smalltalk Community and You?

NEWBIES, FREELANCERS and DEVELOPERS

  • How Business Leaders Make the Smart Choice by Using Cincom Smalltalk
  • Smalltalk Is the Most Productive Language, but Don’t Just Take Our Word for It …
  • Why Should You Attend Smalltalks 2019?
  • Come Dine with Us at Smalltalks 2019!
  • What Other Networking Opportunities Are Coming Up?
  • What Is the Easiest Way to Become a Cincom Smalltalk Customer?
  • FAQ of the Month: “How do I opt-in or re-subscribe so I can receive the Personal Use License (PUL) download email?”
  • Popular Product Resources

ACADEMIA

  • Who Should Use the Academic Personal Use License Version of Cincom Smalltalk?
  • What Is the Cincom Smalltalk Academic Project Submission?

Snippets for these articles can be found below:

CUSTOMERS and PARTNERS

Suggestions for Our Customers and Partners on Year-End Spending

In “Five Tips for ‘Use It or Lose It’ Budgets,” Eric Thomas of CIO Insight discusses some ways that IT managers can improve the management of their budget processes. Eric talks about “use it or lose it” from his perspective:

“I often hear it from my clients in government, specifically from federal CIOs or IT managers. The phrase relates to their IT budget; if they don’t spend their money in the current year, it goes away the following year. … The impact of ‘use it or lose it’ or, more aptly, ‘spend it or lose it’ is most acutely felt during the budgeting process.”

With just over two months before the end of the calendar year, we want to ask current Cincom Smalltalk customers if they have “use it or lose it” funds that they need to spend before the page turns to next year. We’ve listed a few quick ways in which we can encourage our customers to spend that budget while improving the value and profitability of their company or application.

Interested? Check out our helpful list here.

How Can Cincom Better Communicate with the Cincom Smalltalk Community and You?

In a recent Cincom Smalltalk Digest article, we mentioned how comments from strangers, tire kickers, curious onlookers and fresh eyes at recent conferences and meetups have changed the thinking of the Cincom Smalltalk Product Team regarding how we can improve our communication to attract and secure new users and build out our Customer Success programs with existing customers and partners. The sessions, meetups and events we attend are very important to us for attracting strangers to Smalltalk and growing the Smalltalk community.  

However, just because we are putting a focus on improving the communication to those who are strangers to Cincom Smalltalk, it doesn’t mean we are forgetting our valuable customers and partners.  We are currently working to improve all areas of our communication and want to make sure you, and others at your organization, are aware of all the mediums that are available so we can continue to help our customers be successful.  After all, your success is our success.

For your reference, we want to provide a rundown of the various ways we currently communicate, as well as some of the resources we have available for you.

NEWBIES, FREELANCERS and DEVELOPERS

How Business Leaders Make the Smart Choice by Using Cincom Smalltalk

What’s the advantage in using Cincom Smalltalk?

Cincom is one of the largest commercial providers of Smalltalk, with twice as many partners and customers than all other commercial providers combined. Whatever type of application you need, the Cincom Smalltalk suite of tools helps you create value at the lowest possible risk and assures you of the fastest return on investment.

What provides the high value of Smalltalk? Being a long-time Smalltalker, Arden Thomas, the Product Manager for Cincom Smalltalk, says:

“Smalltalk had a massive research and development investment in time, iterations and careful development, to create a language that is easier to use and understand. Smalltalk generally allows solving a problem more succinctly, and clearly, which allows less code to solve a problem.

“Less and clearer code is easier to understand, maintain, and costs less over the life cycle of a software application. The research and development investment in Smalltalk is likely unrivaled by any other language.”

Ready to make the smart choice for yourself? Click here to learn more.

Smalltalk Is the Most Productive Language, but Don’t Just Take Our Word for It …

We know business leaders are not just looking for product messaging from vendors. They need validation from third-party sources—someone other than the vendor—that can help them confirm that they are making the smartest choice for their programming language. Although this isn’t new to Smalltalkers, business leaders looking for help in their decision-making can look to Capers Jones of Namcook Analytics for unbiased research on the topic.

Capers Jones is a long-time expert and author of studies that compare programming languages, including productivity measures. In a recent paper, Capers Jones shows several factors that contribute to the overall value of a programming language over the full life cycle of its use. Although the study shows many types of languages combined, you will see that Smalltalk comes out on top in general-purpose programming languages and also rates very high in function points per month with fewer lines of code.

To learn the specifics and see a chart where Smalltalk is compared, click here.

Why Should You Attend Smalltalks 2019?

Want to learn more about Smalltalk-based technologies, research and industry applications?  Are you looking for a forum to share your stories and expertise on different Smalltalk-inspired languages, frameworks and methodologies?

If the answer to either of these questions is “yes,” you should definitely attend Smalltalks 2019.  This informative and interesting conference will take place in Neuquén, Argentina on November 13-15, with workshops planned at the same site on November 11-12.

  • For more details about Smalltalks 2019, click here.

Come Dine with Us at Smalltalks 2019!

Smalltalks 2019 will take place at Facultad de Informática, Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Neuquén, Argentina. The main event takes place on November 13-15, and workshops, tutorials and introductory talks will take place on November 11-12.

This year, the social dinner will be held on November 14 at Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes Neuquén. Just like last year, conference organizers have arranged for a cocktail-party event where attendees can enjoy the evening by mingling with other Smalltalk enthusiasts.

For more details and helpful links for registration, click here.

What Other Networking Opportunities Are Coming Up?

There are still several upcoming events for the remainder of 2019 where you can meet with Smalltalkers and programmers from around the world.  We are also starting to see events in 2020 pop up that we’ll continue to share in this section.

These networking and learning opportunities include:

What Is the Easiest Way to Become a Cincom Smalltalk Customer?

For individuals who are looking to start a business but need a jumpstart, one exciting program we have to help you is the Cincom Smalltalk REV Program.  The REV program is an opportunity for YOU to take your idea to the next level and create your own business.

We created this program for you to partner with Cincom and receive all the benefits of being a customer. As a Cincom Smalltalk customer, you receive:

  • Access to the full product and all releases for 1 year/12 months
  • Full support for the product during the 1 year/12 months
  • An opportunity to join the Developer Program to get early beta releases of our product to see where we are taking it and comment to help us build out the future of commercial Smalltalk
  • An opportunity to join the Partner Promotion Program to promote your application, help you develop the right markets or find the smartest space to promote what you have been working on

Still not sure if the REV Program is right for your needs? 

  • Listen to Suzanne Fortman talk about how one person used the REV program to jumpstart his business here.
  • Read this article for additional details and instructions on how to begin your customer journey.

FAQ of the Month: “How do I opt-in or re-subscribe so I can receive the Personal Use License (PUL) download email?”

Regardless of where you live, privacy laws are shaping the way companies do business now, and we are no exception to that rule. Privacy is very important to Cincom, and we’ve put in some measures to ensure that we keep your data safe. Because of this, we are unable to send any emails, including the download email for the PUL of Cincom® ObjectStudio® or Cincom® VisualWorks®, without your consent. Whether you remember doing this or not, if you have previously unsubscribed from receiving emails from Cincom Smalltalk and have tried to request a copy of the PUL, our system will not deliver the email to you. There are two steps you’ll need to take to resolve this. Click here to find the quick fix for this.

For other frequently asked questions, visit our “How do I?” section here.

Popular Product Resources

Maybe you are new to Cincom Smalltalk or just need help finding something specific on our website. Here’s a quick guide to the popular resources we have available on our website:

ACADEMIA

Who Should Use the Academic Personal Use License Version of Cincom Smalltalk?

This time of year is when academic programs are in full swing. Our software is free for students to use personally for their studies or class projects, but does require a form to be filled out to receive the link to download it. If you (or another classmate) would like to use our software for personal academic use, we have it available to you. 

To learn about the Cincom Smalltalk Academic Personal Use License (APUL):

What Is the Cincom Smalltalk Academic Project Submission?

At Universidad Nacional de Quilmes in Buenos Aires, Argentina, two students, along with the backing of their professors, elected to tackle a challenge that was affecting their visually impaired classmates: integrating screen readers with Smalltalk. For students Ángeles Tella Arena and Matias Melendi, the project was about ensuring that Cincom Smalltalk Academic Projecttheir blind classmates could interact with the tool in the same way as all of the other students.

The Lazaro Project highlighted above, is one example of a university class project that was made into a promotional story. To view the full story, click here.

Have you created a class project using Cincom Smalltalk and want others to see your work? Fill in the survey below and let’s get started!

  • Submit your academic project here.

Related posts:

  1. Smalltalk Digest: October Edition In this edition, we will discuss fiscally responsible ways to use year-end budget and how custom Services solutions may be a good fit for customers. We will also feature two new Hidden Gems screencasts as well as a preview for upcoming talks by Cincomers....
  2. Smalltalk Digest: October Edition The Personal Use License Versions of Cincom® ObjectStudio® 8.8 and Cincom® VisualWorks® 8.2 Are Here! It is our pleasure to bring you the current Personal Use License (PUL) versions of […]...
  3. Smalltalk Digest: October Edition The October edition of Smalltalk Digest is available now....
  4. Smalltalk Digest: October Edition The October edition of Smalltalk Digest is available now. ...