Cincom Smalltalk Digest: April Edition

Welcome to the April 2023 edition of the Cincom Smalltalk Digest. In this edition, we will highlight:

CUSTOMERS and PARTNERS

• Cincom® ObjectStudio® 9.3 and Cincom® VisualWorks® 9.3 Are Here!
• Quick Access to File New Cases with Cincom Smalltalk Support
• FAQ: How Do I Sign Up for the Cincom Smalltalk Resolutions Newsletter?

BEGINNERS, FREELANCERS and DEVELOPERS

• If You Require Productivity, the Most Productive Programming Language Is Smalltalk
• Tabs: It’s Nothing, It’s Everything
• Have You Become a Member of Our Social Media Community?

CUSTOMERS and PARTNERS

Cincom ObjectStudio 9.3 and Cincom VisualWorks 9.3 Are Here!

Late in March, we were pleased to announce to our valued customers and partners the current version of Cincom Smalltalk. This release includes the releases of Cincom ObjectStudio 9.3 and Cincom VisualWorks 9.3.

Cincom is the market leader in commercial Smalltalk. Cincom Smalltalk enhances the value and ease-of-use of tools for enterprise-level customers and partners and web applications. Developers looking for custom Windows® applications will find ObjectStudio as the ideal choice. When cross-platform custom application development is required, VisualWorks is the perfect solution. 

Cincom Smalltalk Foundation and the core libraries are shared by ObjectStudio and VisualWorks. This means that foundation enhancements benefit both products. It is worth noting that beginning with release 9.0, ObjectStudio and VisualWorks now share a release number. Customers and Cincom can discuss, compare and track both products because they share a foundation of work.

• Our valued customers and partners may order the newest release through our Customer Product Order Request Form.
  • PLEASE NOTE: Our order process has been updated, and we no longer offer autoship.
  • ALSO NOTE:  Should you have any questions or problems accessing the request form above, please contact your Sales Account Manager or Cincom Smalltalk Support.
• Learn more about Cincom Smalltalk 9.3 here.

Quick Access to File New Cases with Cincom Smalltalk Support

For quick access to Cincom Smalltalk Support:

• Visit Cincom SupportWeb® for immediate support.
• Email HelpNA@cincom.com and EuroTSC@cincom.com to file new support cases.
• View Cincom Support Levels.
• Review the Cincom Smalltalk Resolutions Portal.

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

FAQ: How Do I Sign Up for the Cincom Smalltalk Resolutions Newsletter?

The Cincom Smalltalk Resolutions Newsletter is a subscription-only publication that was created exclusively for customers and partners. This useful publication allows subscribers to quickly scan through Cincom Smalltalk resolutions delivered in the previous month.

Feedback from customers and partners has helped us shape the newsletter into what it is today. Following reader feedback, our product marketing team stepped in to add more information for those who wanted an easier way to keep up with Cincom and Cincom Smalltalk.

With the recent release of Cincom Smalltalk 9.3, there’s no better time to be a subscriber! If you are interested in receiving this monthly newsletter with updates on patches for Cincom Smalltalk, subscribe here.

BEGINNERS, FREELANCERS and DEVELOPERS

If You Require Productivity, the Most Productive Programming Language Is Smalltalk

We understand that business leaders are interested in more than just product messaging from vendors. They require validation from third-party sources—people other than the vendor—to ensure that they are selecting the best programming language for their needs. Although this isn’t new to Smalltalkers, business leaders who seek unbiased research on the topic can turn to Capers Jones of Namcook Analytics.

Capers Jones has extensive experience and is the author of studies that compare programming languages, including productivity metrics. Capers Jones demonstrates several factors that contribute to the overall value of a programming language over its entire life cycle in a recent paper. Although the study includes a variety of languages, Smalltalk comes out on top in general-purpose programming languages and also ranks 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.

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.”

Want to learn more about how Cincom Smalltalk can assist you in being more productive, click here.

Tabs: It’s Nothing, It’s Everything

The Hidden Gems screencast series is well known to long-time readers of the Cincom Smalltalk Digest. Those who are new to Smalltalk or Cincom Smalltalk may be unaware of what this series is or how it can benefit their developer path. These screencasts were created to share shortcuts, tips and techniques that may help others learn or get started with Cincom Smalltalk. These specialized product tutorials uniquely share new ways to use various Cincom Smalltalk components, as well as features that might be considered “hidden gems” for productivity.

Our latest product enhancement makes the most productive programming language even more productive. Our latest improvement—it’s small but it’s big! This new Hidden Gems screencast, Tabs: It’s Nothing, It’s Everything, introduces a brand-new Cincom Smalltalk 9.3 product improvement and discusses how one new feature can make a significant improvement in your daily use of Smalltalk.

To learn more about the Hidden Gems Screencast series, check out these links:

• What Is the Hidden Gems Screencast Series and Why Is It Valuable?
• What Are the Benefits of Hidden Gems?
• Tools Series explores some tools and product features that developers should find useful. 
• Techniques Series shows various techniques of how to accomplish or solve different tasks such as automating image build and creating a custom parser. 
• ValueModel Series shows the principles, capabilities and use of the powerful ValueModel framework.
• DomainMaster Series introduces an application framework that leverages the principles of the ValueModel to make application development easier, faster, capable and reliable.  
• Persistence Series shows multiple techniques of how to save and load objects to disk, where using a full database might be overkill or unwieldy.
• Collections Series shows some lesser-known collections that may be beneficial for your collections toolbox. 

Have You Become a Member of Our Social Media Community?

Have you ever used social media to research programming, development, Smalltalk or Cincom Smalltalk?  Cincom Smalltalk has a thriving and active community on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Here are some brief descriptions of some of our most popular social media platforms:

• Cincom Smalltalk Twitter– Here’s a chance to like, retweet or give comments in our Twittersphere. On Twitter, we share a variety of information including user stories, product information, updates, product tutorials, programs and links to the Hidden and Quantitative Gems screencasts. Along with our main Twitter account, there are also several Cincom Smalltalk team members who 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, 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.