Cincom Smalltalk™ Digest: July Edition

Welcome to the July 2021 edition of the Cincom Smalltalk Digest. In this month’s newsletter, you will find the following:

CUSTOMERS and PARTNERS

How Can Cincom Smalltalk Help with Business Process Management?
How Can Cincom Smalltalk Assist with Growing Your Business?
How to Reach Cincom Smalltalk Support via Email

BEGINNERS, FREELANCERS and DEVELOPERS

What Technique Makes Sharing, Moving or Creating a Backup File of Your Code Simple?
How Can You Contribute to Cincom Smalltalk Products?
Component of the Month: RBTabbed Toolsets
What Are Customers Saying about the REV 9.1 Program?
What Changes Are Coming to the Cincom Smalltalk Personal Use License Program?
What Developer Events Are Coming Up?
Is There Something We Can Help You Find?

CUSTOMERS and PARTNERS

How Can Cincom Smalltalk Help with Business Process Management?

The task of understanding and defining business processes is not a new concept. In fact, nearly a decade ago, we introduced a subject on our website called Business Process Analysis (BPA). BPA used to be considered as simply analyzing an organization’s current processes and designing a concept of it through a modeling tool. The goal of this concept was to deliver a working model of the necessary features for the benefit of IT personnel since IT was where the proper system was created, tested and implemented to automate these processes.

In recent years, this predominant IT focus of BPA expanded to encompass the business user’s broader understanding and perspective of the overall business, shifting from the term Business Process Analysis (BPA) to Business Process Management (BPM).

According to Gartner, Business Process Management is a

“discipline that uses various methods to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve and optimize business processes. A business process coordinates the behavior of people, systems, information and things to produce business outcomes in support of a business strategy. … BPM is key to align IT/OT investments to business strategy.”

Forrester simply says Business Process Management

“empowers businesses to run more efficiently and eliminates confusion and confliction.”

All of the methods that Gartner describes above are squarely in the wheelhouse of object-oriented programming, and more specifically Smalltalk. In fact, Cincom® ObjectStudio®:

Known as the “business analyst’s thinking tool”
Based on object-oriented programming in Smalltalk
Provides a powerhouse development environment,
Creates innovative applications that capture complex business models and processes.

#TBT #DYK: The @cincomsmalltalk Modeling & Mapping Tools found in @Cincom #ObjectStudio can help build a visual walkthrough of an entire application—from the front to the back end, helping developers & their clients be on the same page. https://t.co/czt1GbVwMs

— Cincom Smalltalk | try.cincomsmalltalk.com (@cincomsmalltalk) July 1, 2021

Two powerful components found in ObjectStudio are the Modeling and Mapping Tools:

Assist developers in writing applications for clients
Provide a proof of concept or visual aid in which developers and Marketing can communicate
Helps build a visual walkthrough of the entire application—from the front to the back end.
Helps developers and their clients be on the same page with their Business Process Management before months of development time and money are spent on writing the actual application.

To learn more about the Cincom ObjectStudio Modeling and Mapping Tools and see working demos and tutorials, click here.

How Can Cincom Smalltalk Assist with Growing Your Business?

As the need for process agility and digital transformation increases for Business Process Management, Cincom Smalltalk is helping business users through various services and programs we offer our customers and partners. Through Cincom Smalltalk Services, we can help with:

Product upgrades
Mentoring
Troubleshooting
Performance enhancement
Proof-of-concept
… and much more!

More information about how Cincom Smalltalk Services can help with managing business processes can be found here.

Listen to Suzanne Fortman, the Program Director and Engineering Manager of Cincom Smalltalk, describe how Cincom Professional Services helped one of our customers here.

How to Reach Cincom Smalltalk Support via Email

Many of you prefer to communicate with Cincom Smalltalk Support via email. To make it easier for you to reach us, we’ve created a new email address, SmalltalkSupportTSC@Cincom.com, to access the Global Smalltalk Support team (USA and Europe). The new email address allows for both English and German language Cincom Smalltalk Support. Be advised, this email address replaces Cincom-Support@heeg.de, so please use SmalltalkSupportTSC@cincom.com moving forward.

Be assured that our current Support channels via our HelpNA@Cincom.com and EuroTSC@Cincom.com addresses are still open for filing new support cases.

We value your input and want to make sure you know how to get in touch with us. Please send your comments or suggestions to the Cincom Smalltalk Product Team at CSSTARTeam@cincom.com.

BEGINNERS, FREELANCERS and DEVELOPERS

In this section, beginners to Smalltalk, freelancers and developers will read informative articles and see specific Smalltalk examples to help users learn new skills or enhance existing skills using Cincom Smalltalk.

What Technique Makes Sharing, Moving or Creating a Backup File of Your Code Simple?

The Hidden Gems screencast series was created for developers who are passionate about their use of Cincom Smalltalk. These screencasts give the viewer live coding examples while sharing valuable insight into the product and informing them about things they may not know about.

SQLite is a small, fast and reliable relational database that is easy to use. Using Store with SQLite is a convenient format for sharing or moving Smalltalk code or creating a backup file of your code.

Often on Hidden Gems screencasts, we say “it is easy, once you know how,” and Hidden Gems – Store with SQLite is a great example of this. The minimal installation we need is simple, but not obvious. Enjoy this useful technique!

This screencast is part of the Techniques Series that shows various techniques for accomplishing or solving different tasks using Cincom Smalltalk.

If you have questions, comments, or ideas for other Smalltalk examples or suggestions for future Hidden Gems, please email the Cincom Smalltalk Product Team at CSSTARTeam@cincom.com.

How Can You Contribute to Cincom Smalltalk Products?

Developers like you often create great tools, enhancements, frameworks, examples and applications, and like to share them, get recognition for them or receive suggestions for improvement. The Cincom Smalltalk Product Team has enhanced the section of our website that highlights these contributed items from customers, partners and users. This revamped area gives more detail for each item and is a better-organized and comprehensive home for the list of contributed items available. You can find these items on the Cincom Smalltalk Store Repository and the Contributed Components list on our website.

With more detail and better organization, these items are more searchable and easier to find so that other developers can use them. More visibility and usage of Contributed Items could lead to a success story, article or Hidden Gems screencast being developed for it. This helps to further promote you, your work and your application to a much wider audience, giving you valuable exposure.

To help developers find, understand, appreciate and utilize your contributed work, please use the guidelines for the final documentation of your contributed work here.
If you have created something you think would be of value and interest to other Smalltalk developers or could help attract new users to Smalltalk, please apply through the Contributed Application Form here.

Component of the Month: RBTabbed Toolsets

Last month we highlighted the PackageComparisonTool. That tool is located in an area on the Cincom Smalltalk website where we showcase contributed component items from customers, partners and users. These components are listed on our website because they are no longer on our product distribution. We realize that some components may not have been chosen during installation. This directory lists these components to browse the page and add to them without firing up the installer again. The individual pages for each component also give more information than the brief two lines of the installer.

Click here to access this section.

This month, we are highlighting the RBTabbed Toolsets. This tool adds visible tabs (much like an internet browser) to your refactoring browser, allowing fewer windows. If you’d like to hear more about this tool, it is discussed as part of the Hidden Gems screencast about browsers: Hidden Gems: Browsers, Part 2.

To learn more about other Contributed Components, click here.

What Are Customers Saying about the REV 9.1 Program?

Cincom Smalltalk 9.x and higher are only available to customers and partners. An option we’ve provided developers who want to use the newer versions of Cincom Smalltalk is the REV 9.1 Program.

The REV 9.1 Program gives developers an opportunity to invest in their futures and become a Cincom customer through this one-year, $1,000, non-renewable license that’s available to purchase on our website. Since the latest release of Cincom Smalltalk 9.1, this program has grown in popularity as PUL users seek to shift their personal usage to commercial projects:

“I’m so happy with the REV 9.1 program! During my 12 months in the program, I started with 9.0, then got 9.0.1 when it came out last fall and just recently received 9.1. The best part is that I wasn’t hounded by salespeople. I was simply notified when there was a new release and given easy instructions on how to get it. I appreciate Cincom for creating such a valuable program for a programmer in my situation. It is a perfect experience to get to know Cincom and use Cincom Smalltalk.”
– Alex G.

Learn more about the REV Program Smalltalk prides itself on simplicity, and we’ve recently enhanced the REV 9.1 Program process, making it just a few simple steps to get started. If you are interested, simply click here and begin your journey!

What Changes Are Coming to the Cincom Smalltalk Personal Use License Program?

The Personal Use License (PUL) Program is ideal for developers who are looking to add new tools to their “developer toolboxes.” The PUL allows the freedom for interested developers to evaluate our products before realizing that Cincom Smalltalk is the right fit for their businesses or project needs.

The big news about the Cincom Smalltalk Personal Use License (CST PUL) Program is that users will now be receiving both Cincom ObjectStudio and Cincom^® VisualWorks^® when requesting Cincom Smalltalk.

As with the latest releases of Cincom Smalltalk 9.x that customers and partners receive,
the CST PUL:

Gives developers both Cincom ObjectStudio and Cincom VisualWorks.
Lets VisualWorks users have easy access to the Next Generation User Interface, Modeling & Mapping Tools and Round-trip Engineering capabilities that are exclusive to ObjectStudio.
Allows ObjectStudio users to experience the robust, cross-platform application development environment of VisualWorks.

The change from the PUL Program to the CST PUL Program highlights the fact that the product developers will be receiving is Cincom Smalltalk, reflecting on the strength of the Cincom brand—a commercial Smalltalk provider for over two decades. By providing both products, we simplify the decision-making and make it easy for interested users to select the right Cincom Smalltalk product for their business needs.

Watch this video to hear examples of how this trial license has been used by others.
Click here to start exploring Cincom Smalltalk and all that it can do for you.

What Developer Events Are Coming Up?

Please take note of these future meetings and their medium for delivery:

July 28, 2021 (VIRTUAL) — UK Smalltalk User Group Meetup
August 11, 2021 (VIRTUAL) — California Smalltalkers Meetup
October 17-22, 2021 (Chicago, Illinois) – SPLASH 2021 (ACM SIGPLAN conference on Systems, Programming, Languages and Applications: Software for Humanity). SPLASH 2021 will also be co-hosting (online) other conferences and symposiums simultaneously. Click here for more details.
FEATURED: October 27, 2021, 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. (VIRTUAL) – UK Smalltalk User Group Meetup (Arden Thomas will be presenting Cincom Smalltalk 9.1, giving more details about the new releases and what these changes mean for customers and partners.)

You can monitor other future meetups and conferences as well as any changes to their scheduling on our Events page.

Is there something we can help you find?

Is There Something We Can Help You Find?

We have some big changes coming soon to the Cincom Smalltalk website that will help you find information much easier. In the meantime, what can we help you find? We have our customer, partner and user resources; programs and product information listed here.

CUSTOMERS:

GENERAL INFORMATION:

Reach out to the Cincom Smalltalk Product Team at CSSTARTeam@cincom.com if you have any further questions or comments.