Cincom Smalltalk Digest: October Edition

The Cincom Smalltalk Digest is a monthly publication that provides news, updates and resources for our customers, partners and users.

The following are included in this month’s newsletter:

CUSTOMERS and PARTNERS

• BREAKING NEWS: Cincom Smalltalk 9.2.1 Is Now Available!
• Interested in Becoming a Cincom Services Partner?
• Are There Other Ways We Can Share Information with You?

BEGINNERS, FREELANCERS and DEVELOPERS

• Where Does the Time Go?
• Component of the Month: TimeProfiler
• Have You Visited the Cincom Smalltalk Website Lately?
• Have You Connected with Us on Social Media?

CUSTOMERS and PARTNERS

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

BREAKING NEWS: Cincom Smalltalk 9.2.1 Is Now Available!

It is our pleasure to bring you the current version of Cincom Smalltalk. This release includes the releases of Cincom® ObjectStudio® 9.2.1 and Cincom® VisualWorks® 9.2.1.

Cincom is a leading provider of commercial Smalltalk. Cincom Smalltalk adds value and simplicity to application development software, web application development tools and deployment environments. ObjectStudio is an ideal solution for developing custom applications for Windows® while VisualWorks is the ideal solution for enterprise-level, multilingual, cross-platform, custom application development.

ObjectStudio and VisualWorks share the same core libraries and the Cincom Smalltalk Foundation. This means foundation improvements enhance both products. Note that starting with release 9.0, ObjectStudio and VisualWorks now share a release number. Since both products share a foundation of work, this makes it easier for customers and Cincom to discuss, compare and track.

Where Can I Get This Release?

As one of our valued Cincom Smalltalk customers or partners, we’re pleased to offer you this opportunity to request the latest release of Cincom Smalltalk through our Product Order Request Form.

PLEASE NOTE: Our order process has been updated, and we no longer offer auto-ship. Should you have any questions or problems with accessing the request form above, please contact your Sales Account Manager or Cincom Smalltalk Support.

What’s in This Release?

The current releases of Cincom ObjectStudio 9.2.1 and Cincom VisualWorks 9.2.1 are maintenance releases and contain fixes and improvements to the last major releases. 

Recent major releases 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

Please see the product release notes to learn more about these new maintenance releases. The release notes contain descriptions of the ARs and support resolutions that were addressed.

• If we can assist you in any way, please contact the Cincom Smalltalk Product Team here.

Interested in Becoming a Cincom Services Partner?

Cincom Systems, Inc. is actively looking for Service Partners for the Cincom Smalltalk product suite. Our customers and partners are expanding, and we need your assistance in managing this expansion!

We need assistance in managing these projects because we have so many accounts upgrading to new versions of our product and developing new applications to integrate with other trusted Smalltalk solutions. As the end of the fiscal year approaches, we see customers and partners utilizing their “use it or lose it” budgets to improve their applications and expand their businesses.

Contact Suzanne Fortman, the Cincom Smalltalk Program Director, Support, Engineering and Consulting Services Manager to learn more details about this exciting opportunity.

Are There Other Ways We Can Share Information with You?

Do you have any feedback for our team? What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? What could we do better? Where do you get your information from?

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, or:

• Contact Suzanne Fortman for business, support, engineering or consulting services questions about Cincom Smalltalk.
• Contact Arden Thomas for questions about the Cincom Smalltalk Product Roadmap.
• Contact Jeremy Jordan to share a story regarding how you use Cincom Smalltalk.

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.

Where Does the Time Go?

Fall is upon us and it seems as if we were celebrating the start of summer just a few short weeks ago. In similar fashion, it seems as if the Hidden Gems screencast series started recently, when in fact, it actually started nearly seven years ago! Where did the time go?

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

So why all this talk about “time?”

If you are a long-time user of Cincom Smalltalk products, you may well be familiar with the time profiling tools. If you are not familiar with them, we highly recommend that you check out this video to add a powerful tool to your development toolbox.

If you have code that executes slower than you think it should, and have wondered what specifically is slowing things down, you will find the time profiling tools that come with the products to be of great value.

Research has shown that our guesses on performance bottlenecks are often rather inaccurate. In this screencast, Hidden Gems: Introduction to the Performance Profiler, we will:

• Build a simple word counting example
• Show the execution time
• Load the Profiling tools
• Profile the execution to see what code is slowest
• Improve the solution and discuss time and profile

Three ways to improve performance:

1. Architectural
2. Algorithmic
3. Code tweaks

[ embed video ]

This latest Hidden Gems screencast is part of the Hidden Gems: Tools Series that explores some tools and product features that developers should find useful, as well as the Hidden Gems: Techniques Series that shows various techniques of how to accomplish or solve different tasks from automating image build to creating a custom parser. 

Component of the Month: TimeProfiler

Last month, we highlighted NumericCollections, which adds the four basic numeric methods (+, -, *, /) to collections, as well as some other methods that come as a natural follow-on.

This month, we are featuring the TimeProfiler. The TimeProfiler is used to profile the time and space usage of a Smalltalk process. The screencast, Hidden Gems: Introduction to the Performance Profiler (add link), shows how to load the TimeProfiler, which can be found in the product.

Have You Visited the Cincom Smalltalk Website Lately?

We recently renovated the secure landing site for all things Cincom Smalltalk: https://cincomsmalltalk.com. Our website continues to grow each month, and we actively listen to customer, partner and user comments and apply those suggestions to better share information to those who need it. In the past, the majority of those comments centered on ease of use, improved navigation, simpler menus and larger reading areas. We took notes and addressed those things!

Last year, we relaunched our website with the overall goal of making it simpler to use for everyone. Aesthetically, our online home has a wider horizontal reading pane, which makes it easier to view the content you want. We’ve simplified the menu structure, putting the most requested information easily within reach and eliminating the guesswork of where things are. We’ve also improved the navigation by creating new landing pages and shortening the URLs of high-traffic areas.

To get a quick snapshot of those improvements, check out some of the things users can find:

• “Order Product” button – An easier way to find the Product Order Request Form so customers and partners can upgrade to the current release
• Product information
• Program information
• Support information 
• Services information 
• Product management mini-surveys 
• Frequently asked questions
• Video archive

See our website in action here: https://www.cincomsmalltalk.com

Have You Connected with Us on Social Media?

Cincom Smalltalk has a growing, active community on several social media sites including Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

Have you ever used social media to get information about programming, development, Smalltalk or Cincom Smalltalk?  Here are a few descriptions of our more popular social sites:

• Cincom Smalltalk Twitter– Here’s your chance to like, retweet, or comment on something in our Twittersphere. We share information on Twitter such as user stories, product information, updates, product tutorials, programs and links to the Hidden and Quantitative Gems screencasts. In addition to our main Twitter account, several Cincom Smalltalk team members are active on Twitter, contributing and engaging with customers, partners, users and curious onlookers.
• Cincom Smalltalk YouTube– If you are looking for a more visual experience, YouTube is the place to browse hundreds of Cincom Smalltalk videos that are organized into nearly 30 unique playlists that help you find the topic you are looking for.
• Cincom Smalltalk Facebook– If Facebook is more your speed, we post user stories, product information and updates and a wide variety of videos, including customer, partner and user program highlights; product tutorials and Hidden and Quantitative Gems screencasts.