Cincom Smalltalk Digest: July Edition

The Cincom Smalltalk Digest is a monthly publication that provides news, updates and resources to our customers, partners and users. This month’s newsletter includes the following:

CUSTOMERS and PARTNERS

• How Have We Simplified Access to Support?
• Session One: Learning the X’s and O’s with Smalltalk Support

BEGINNERS, FREELANCERS and DEVELOPERS

• A Milestone Achievement for Georg Heeg eK
• Making the Smart Choice to Use Cincom Smalltalk for Your Business
• Need Productivity? Smalltalk Is the Most Productive Programming Language
• Quick Tips for Store Image Setup

CUSTOMERS and PARTNERS

This section of the Cincom Smalltalk Digest is dedicated to our loyal customers and partners.

How Have We Simplified Access to Support?

Our job is to ensure that our customers and partners get the most out of their purchases and get good value for their money. Our goal is to learn as much as we can about your company, application or service in order to provide valuable and timely recommendations for using Cincom Smalltalk products and services.

One way we do this is through constant communication.  Recently, we revamped the Customer and Partner Support Portal on our website in a more simple way. Now, if you need quick access to Cincom Support, we provide two easy links:

• Visit Cincom SupportWeb® for immediate support.
• Email HelpNA@cincom.com and EuroTSC@cincom.com to file new support cases.

As always, you can reach the Cincom Smalltalk Product Team at CSSTARTeam@cincom.com if you have any further questions or comments.

In addition to this quick access, we now provide links to:

• Cincom Support Levels
• Cincom Smalltalk Resolutions Portal
• Subscribe to the Cincom Smalltalk Resolutions Newsletter (for customers and partners who have yet to subscribe to this newsletter)

Session One: Learning the X’s and O’s with Smalltalk Support

Expert coaching done the right way with Cincom Smalltalk Support.

What’s the difference between therapy and coaching?  Therapy dwells on the past in order for a person to understand how they came to be where they are in the present.  Coaching assesses where you are in the present and maps a way for you to reach the goals you want.  

Which sounds more interesting to be involved with?  Coaching is our guess, and guess what?  Cincom Smalltalk Support is a key place to start receiving coaching on how to move forward from an old release to the latest Cincom Smalltalk release. 

Coaching Session One: One way to start moving forward is to do a little bit of self-study with the release notes. 

For review, the current releases of Cincom^® ObjectStudio® 9.2 and Cincom® VisualWorks® 9.2 are major releases.  Changes include:

• Cincom Smalltalk Foundation 9.2
  • Store merging enhancements
  • Tools:

• Browser subset infrastructure added
• UIPainter undo/redo support

• • AppeX

• HTML tagging support
• JavaScript ES8 support
• HTML and CSS Syntax highlighting
• Web Assets tab in browser

• • Security

• Enhanced external encryption
• New external encryption support for MacOS (NW-Plugin)
• TLS-Plugin now standard (TLS removed)

• • PostgreSQL

• TLS connections with PostgreSQL
• SASL authentication with PostgreSQL
• PostgreSQL binary connection API

• Cincom ObjectStudio 9.2
  • Next Generation User Interface

• Windows National Language support
• COVID-19 Data Visualization demo using ObjectStudio NGUI

• • Timestamped image file
  • CSV data explorer tool
  • Heat map graph type with examples
  • Box Plot graph type with examples
  • Choropleth (Map) graph type with examples

• Cincom VisualWorks 9.2
  • GUI infrastructure work for VisualWorks and tools
  • GUI layout improvements
  • VisualControl widget updates

To learn more about these new releases, please see the product release notes and bug fix files. The release notes contain new feature descriptions and changes, and the bug fix files list the ARs addressed.

Not sure where to find them? 

ObjectStudio’s release notes are found in “C:\Program Files (x86)\Cincom\ObjectStudio9.2\ObjectStudio\manuals\Docs” and the bug-fix list is found in the ObjectStudio directory’s “Readme.txt” file. The VisualWorks release notes and bug-fix list are found in the “VW9.2\doc” directory (“ReleaseNotes9.2.pdf” and “Fixed_Ars.txt”)

So a little reading can go a long way toward a smoother, less-frustrating upgrade.  When you need further clarification, just contact Cincom Smalltalk Support.

We hope this coaching session was of value to you. 

Let’s get connected so we can coach you on your journey to the latest Cincom Smalltalk release. We look forward to hearing from you.  Just contact us via:

• Cincom SupportWeb® for immediate support.
• HelpNA@cincom.com and EuroTSC@cincom.com to file new support cases.

You can reach the Cincom Smalltalk Product Team at CSSTARTeam@cincom.com if you have any further questions.

BEGINNERS, FREELANCERS and DEVELOPERS

This section of the Cincom Smalltalk Digest is dedicated to new Smalltalkers, freelancers and experienced developers, with informative articles and specific Smalltalk examples for learning new skills or honing existing ones using Cincom Smalltalk.

A Milestone Achievement for Georg Heeg eK

We are delighted to announce that Georg Heeg eK, our Premier Partner, recently celebrated its 35th anniversary. Georg Heeg eK was officially established and registered in the city of Dortmund, Germany on July 7, 1987.

Georg Heeg eK has been instrumental in the growth and adoption of Smalltalk over the past several years, and the company’s dedication to both Smalltalk and Cincom is a testament to the special relationship between the two organizations.

Georg Heeg eK became an official Cincom partner in 2000 and has since built a strong and valued relationship with Cincom by being a trusted partner in development, consulting, support, sales, marketing, and as a Value Added Reseller.

Anyone who is familiar with Smalltalk is aware of the Heeg organization. The fact that they have so closely aligned with Cincom has had a significant impact on Smalltalk’s growth and profitability, and we look forward to future opportunities.

Cincom has benefited greatly from its collaboration with Georg Heeg eK. This relationship has not only resulted in revenue-generating projects over the years, but it has also helped to promote Cincom throughout the Smalltalk community and users worldwide.

Georg Heeg eK is well-known all over the world. Georg Heeg, the company’s founder and owner, travels the world as a speaker and advocate of Smalltalk, and he has an excellent business reputation as well as a passion for Smalltalk, particularly Cincom Smalltalk. He only works with Smalltalk and offers consulting, training, development, pre-sales and post-sales support.

Georg’s enthusiasm for Smalltalk, excellent business acumen, and desire to see Smalltalk and our valued relationships grow will only lead to future growth for Cincom and Cincom Smalltalk.

Happy Anniversary!

We sincerely wish Georg Heeg eK a very happy 35th anniversary and continued success in the many, many, many years ahead!

Making the Smart Choice to Use Cincom Smalltalk for Your Business

Risk is always a concern for business leaders. One bad decision could result in a loss of revenue, resources or personnel, or even the premature closure of their business. One of the things that keeps business leaders awake at night is this responsibility. They are responsible for making decisions that generate enough revenue to keep their employees employed and provide for their families, all while moving the company forward and remaining competitive.

Indeed.com recently put out the “12 Risks in Software Development,” siting multiple risks in software development and how they can be mitigated. One issue is low productivity:

“… Sometimes, software development teams may struggle with productivity, which can happen because of delays, employee burnout and many other factors.”

With this being such a critical issue for business leaders, minimizing risk in any decision is a top priority. There are numerous programming languages for application development available in the tech market. In an effort to mitigate the risk of low productivity, business leaders should seek a platform that can reduce delays and see their developers enjoy their work, among other things.

Cincom is one of the world’s largest commercial providers of Smalltalk. Whatever type of application you require, the Cincom Smalltalk suite of tools assists you in creating value with the least amount of risk, highest productivity and the quickest return on investment.

For software development, Smalltalk cuts the complexity while accelerating your company’s potential for profitable growth. This simple development tool helps you create value at the lowest possible risk and assures you of the fastest return on investment.

What is the source of Smalltalk’s high value? Arden Thomas, Product Manager for Cincom Smalltalk and a long-time Smalltalker, 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.”

Learn more by reading the “Pearls of Smalltalk” here: https://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/main/solutions/decision-makers/

Need Productivity? Smalltalk Is the Most Productive Programming Language

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.

* KLOC = lines of code, which is a software metric used to measure the size of a computer program by counting the number of lines in the text of the program’s source code.

To see this paper in its entirety, click here.

As Thomas M. Nies, Chairman and CEO of Cincom Systems, Inc. says,

“High value and low cost with a rapid return on investment at low risk—you simply can’t go wrong by choosing Cincom Smalltalk.”

Quick Tips for Store Image Setup

Arden Thomas, the Cincom Smalltalk Product Manager, began the Hidden Gems screencast series to showcase shortcuts, tips and techniques that may make it easier for others to use or kickstart their use of Cincom Smalltalk. Arden shares how he utilizes multiple Cincom Smalltalk components, as well as features he uses for his own productivity that he considers “hidden gems” in these screencasts.

In this month’s new Hidden Gems screencast, Store Quick Tips, we discuss Store image setup tips.

Need to set up your Store repository access for a new image? This Hidden Gems shows some time-saving techniques you can use immediately to save time in your image setup.