Smalltalk Digest: January Edition
Welcome to the January 2020 edition of the Cincom Smalltalk™ Digest. In this valuable New Year’s edition, we will talk about the following:
CUSTOMERS and PARTNERS
- Why Consider the Partner Promotion Program?
- What Is the Cincom Discovery Zone and How Can It Benefit Your Business?
- New Year, New Opportunities for Improved Communications
NEWBIES, FREELANCERS and DEVELOPERS
- How Can You Use the Cincom® VisualWorks® EXDIs from Cincom® ObjectStudio®?
- Munich Smalltalk User Group Plans Its First Meetup for 2020
- How Does Cincom Promote Smalltalk Events, Conferences and Meetups for the Smalltalk Community?
- What Other Networking Opportunities Are Coming Up in 2020?
- What Is the Easiest Way to Become a Cincom Smalltalk Customer?
- FAQ of the Month: “How Can I Find Tutorials and Other Guidance for Using Cincom Smalltalk?“
- 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
Why Consider the Partner Promotion Program?
Marketing is a critical piece to our customers’ success, so we created this Partner Promotion Program to help!
Cincom understands the value of Marketing. We know it can be difficult for customers and partners to switch from “creative technology” mode to “share your story” mode. The cost of creation can be daunting, and knowing “who to” and “how to” is a specialty of ours. However, marketing is such a critical piece to the success of every business.
The partnership: You develop the cool applications, and we’ll develop the easy marketing programs.
Learn more about how Cincom partners with the Smalltalk community to grow awareness and success for Smalltalk applications and services here.
What Is the Cincom Discovery Zone and How Can It Benefit Your Business?
Let us introduce you to the Cincom Smalltalk Customer Discovery Zone.
Our Services and Support teams have decades of experience in discovering and maximizing productivity. We have the knowledge and creativity to discover opportunities for growth, productivity and added value in your application and business.
Here are some of the ways we can help you find new potential in your application:
- Product Upgrades
- Mentoring
- Troubleshooting
- Performance Enhancement
- Migrations
- Proof of Concept
Interested? See more details, and learn how to get started discovering the hidden value waiting to be found here.
New Year, New Opportunities for Improved Communications
In recent Cincom Smalltalk Digest articles, we discussed our renewed focus on improving the communication to you, our valuable customers, partners and those who are test-driving Cincom Smalltalk.
One important change we want to highlight is about the newsletter you are currently reading. You may have noticed that we have added a new and improved CUSTOMER VERSION of the Cincom Smalltalk Digest. As you already know, the Digest is our subscriber-based, monthly newsletter that is an index of recent news, events and product information found here on our website. Recently, we’ve created a customer-only version that highlights customer successes, services opportunities, support information and other things prepared exclusively for you.
If you have any feedback or anything you’d like to specifically see in your Digest email, please send an email to the Cincom Smalltalk Product Team here.
NEWBIES, FREELANCERS and DEVELOPERS
What started in October 2009 and ends today? Windows 7! No updates going forward for the venerable Win7. Like Windows XP, Windows 7 was a solid release that folks would stay with as long as possible. It was a good run. #Smalltalk #ObjectStudio #VisualWorks #productManagement
— Arden (@ArdenTCST) January 17, 2020
How Can You Use the Cincom VisualWorks EXDIs from Cincom ObjectStudio?
Since ObjectStudio and VisualWorks share the same foundation, and ObjectStudio database wrappers are built upon VisualWorks EXDIs, ObjectStudio users have access to not only the functionality of ObjectStudio database wrappers, but also those of VisualWorks EXDI. Therefore, users have the opportunity to choose the appropriate features from both to meet their development needs.
In this article, we’ll demonstrate how users can implement the VisualWorks database to connect directly from ObjectStudio and discuss the advantages of doing so.
- Click here to learn more and see some coding examples.
Munich Smalltalk User Group Plans Its First Meetup for 2020
Organizers of the Munich Smalltalk User Group decided to postpone its third event to early 2020. The meetup will take place this Friday, January 24 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Café Ludwig, Klopstockstraße 10 München, BY.
With relaxed, open discussions about everything that’s Smalltalk related, the meetup will be hosted by Andre Marquis who says,
“I’m a fascinated long-term Smalltalk fan. For me, Smalltalk is still a source of innovation and inspiration. As I love to discuss these insights with others, I’m happy to meet like-minded people in order to relaunch this Munich group.”
How Does Cincom Promote Smalltalk Events, Conferences and Meetups for the Smalltalk Community?
Do you have a Camp Smalltalk, Smalltalk conference or other event that you would like promoted? Are there technology or business conferences you attend that other Smalltalkers might gain value from?
We are always happy to promote Smalltalk events around the world. These events help strengthen the Smalltalk community and provide opportunity for Smalltalkers to work together and think of new ideas.
If this interests you, we have created a mini-survey with a few questions for you to answer. Simply complete this brief questionnaire, and we’ll begin creating your promotion right away.
- Click here to begin your free event promotion.
What Other Networking Opportunities Are Coming Up in 2020?
As we look ahead into this new year, there are several upcoming events where you can meet with Smalltalkers and programmers from around the world. These networking and learning opportunities include:
- Friday, January 24, 2020 — Munich Smalltalk User Group Meetup (Munich, Germany)
- February 3-7, 2020 — OOP 2020 Conference (Munich, Germany)
- Smalltalk Stockholm February Meetup (Stockholm, Sweden)
- March 23-26, 2020 — ‹Programming› 2020 (Porto, Portugal)
Do you belong to a local meetup or user group that you think other Smalltakers would be interested in? We promote a wide range of events throughout the year, and we would love to promote yours as well. If you have an event to share, reach out to Jeremy Jordan, the Sr. Marketing Director for Cincom Smalltalk, at:
- Direct Message: twitter.com/smalltalkmktg | facebook.com/cincomsmalltalk
- Email: jjordan@cincom.com
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 Can I Find Tutorials and Other Guidance for Using Cincom Smalltalk?“
We are often asked about tutorials and other training available for learning Smalltalk and Cincom Smalltalk. In our FAQ section, we provided this simple answer:
- You can find a large selection of tutorials, covering Common Tools, Cincom ObjectStudio and Cincom VisualWorks by clicking here.
- You can also find the popular Hidden Gems Screencast produced by our Product Manager, Arden Thomas. The purpose of the Hidden Gems Screencast is to give newbies and developers who regularly use Cincom Smalltalk awareness to some of the useful abilities of the products that may not be obvious. You can see the Hidden Gems by clicking here.
For other frequently asked questions, visit our FAQs section where we answer “How do I…?” and other questions here.
Popular Product Resources
Maybe you are new to Cincom Smalltalk or just need help finding something specific on our website. We’re taking advantage of the new year and new trends, and you’ll begin to see website updates if you haven’t already.
Here’s a quick guide to the popular resources we currently have available on our website:
- Download Center
- Common Tools Tutorials
- Cincom ObjectStudio Tutorials
- Cincom VisualWorks Tutorials
- Cincom Smalltalk Presentations
- Cincom Smalltalk Videos
- Public Store Repository
- Contributed Components
- Reserved NameSpaces
ACADEMIA
Who Should Use the Academic Personal Use License Version of Cincom Smalltalk?
Our software is free for students and professors 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):
- Read this article.
- Watch this short video of Suzanne Fortman.
What Is the Cincom Smalltalk Academic Project Submission?
Students, have you created a class project using Cincom Smalltalk and want others to see your work?
If you’ve read through this Digest, you noticed the Partner Promotion Program we highlighted at the beginning of this newsletter. We created a very similar program for students like you who want to show off their application development abilities. This is your opportunity to take advantage of a very similar program designed for academic use.
If you are ready to get started, fill in the simple survey below.
- Submit your academic project here.