Largest Provider of Commercial Smalltalk
Cincom is one of the largest commercial providers of Smalltalk, with twice as many customers and partners as other commercial providers.

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Cincom Smalltalk™ Digest: August Edition

Smalltalk Digest

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

CUSTOMERS and PARTNERS

  • Don’t Lose Out on Next Year’s Budget. Use What You Have before It’s Too Late!
  • How to Communicate with Cincom Smalltalk

BEGINNERS, FREELANCERS and DEVELOPERS

  • Why Should I Purchase Commercial Smalltalk?
  • What Are Cincom’s Commercial Smalltalk Options?
  • What Tool Can You Use to Replicate or Back Up Your Repository?
  • Component of the Month: StoreForGlorpReplication
  • Have You Developed an Add-on or Application Using Cincom Smalltalk that May Add Value for Others?
  • Developer Events that May Interest You
  • Is There Something Specific You Are Looking for?

CUSTOMERS and PARTNERS

Don’t Lose Out on Next Year’s Budget. Use What You Have before It’s Too Late!

In “Five Tips for ‘Use It or Lose It’ Budgets,” Eric Thomas of CIO Insight discusses some ways that IT managers can improve the management of their budget processes. Eric talks about “use it or lose it” from his perspective:

“I often hear [the phrase ‘Use it or lose it’] from my clients. … The phrase relates to their IT budget; if they don’t spend their money in the current year, it goes away the following year. … The impact of ‘use it or lose it’ or, more aptly, ‘spend it or lose it,’ is most acutely felt during the budgeting process.”

Not everyone’s fiscal year ends on December 31. Perhaps the end of your unique fiscal year is quickly approaching, and you have “use it or lose it” funds that you need to spend before the year runs out. As a Cincom Smalltalk customer or partner, here are a few quick ways in which you can wisely spend that budget while improving the value and profitability of your company or application:

  • Product upgrades
  • Performance enhancements
  • Troubleshooting
  • Migrations
  • Mentoring
  • Proofs of concept

So what are you waiting for? The clock’s ticking on your budget! Contact the Cincom Smalltalk Product Team right away to get the process started before it’s too late.

Want to learn more? Check out this video from Suzanne Fortman, the Cincom Smalltalk Program Director and Engineering Manager, as she discusses some ways to be fiscally responsible when spending your “use it or lose it” budget.

How to Communicate with Cincom Smalltalk

How to Communicate with Cincom Smalltalk

BEGINNERS, FREELANCERS and DEVELOPERS

This section is dedicated to beginners to Smalltalk, freelancers and developers. Here you can find informative articles and see specific Smalltalk examples for learning new skills or enhancing existing skills using Cincom Smalltalk.

Why Should I Purchase Commercial Smalltalk?

Recently, we spoke to a new REV 9.1 Program customer who was candid with us about their reasoning for making a commercial purchase of Smalltalk with Cincom.  With permission, we wanted to share the details of their story, as it may relate with many of our readers.

Cincom Smalltalk Team,

I wanted to share my personal experience with you so you have a better understanding of the revelation I had using your products.

I am a consumer of a wide variety of software applications.  Being a business owner and a developer, I must use a wide range of tools to help me be as efficient as possible.  Where I can save money, you better believe, I’m going to cut corners and save money. This is why we (myself and your team) have had many conversations in the past when I’ve been frustrated about not getting access to all that I wanted to use in your product … for free!

I came to the realization that I pay for many other software services to companies that never give me more than a 30-day trial. These are essential to my business, and I don’t think twice about paying those monthly fees. I won’t share everything I use, but I do pay for some big ones like Adobe (for my design people) and Zoho (for my business applications). When I looked at my business expenses for the year, I realized that budgeting for these applications is something I must do.  It’s a need, not a want.  I would never contact Adobe and tell them that they shouldn’t be charging for their commercial design tools. Yet, when it came to my commercial application development needs, I wanted you (Cincom) to give me everything for free!

So, I had a change of heart and have no issues paying for commercial Smalltalk through Cincom.  As you know, I’m currently in the REV 9.1 Program, but I will be moving to a different license before my year runs out, as I’ll be ready to make money.

I’m excited about the application I’m finalizing and will be sharing it with you all as soon as I go to market.  Maybe we can do a story or something once I get it out there.  Thanks again for providing the options you do and for staying patient with people like me. Please share this with others.  Maybe they will share a similar revelation.

Rick P.

What Are Cincom’s Commercial Smalltalk Options?

What Are Cincom’s Commercial Smalltalk Options?

For over 50 years, Cincom Systems, Inc. has been at the forefront of innovative software developments and products. For those who are looking for commercial Smalltalk, Cincom has been a reliable and experienced provider for over two decades.

We have several types of licensing options, but two popular programs we have available are the REV 9.1 Program and the Cincom Smalltalk Personal Use License Program.

REV 9.1 Program

The REV 9.1 Program is available for purchase on our website and gives developers:

  • The opportunity to invest in their futures
  • The opportunity to become a Cincom customer
  • A one-year, $1,000 non-renewable license
  • Full support for one year

Since the latest release of Cincom Smalltalk 9.1, we’ve seen a huge increase in this program’s popularity as PUL users demand more than they can receive from the Personal Use License and shift their personal usage to commercial projects.

Smalltalk prides itself on simplicity, and the REV 9.1 Program process takes just a few simple steps to get started. If you are interested, simply click here and begin your journey!

Cincom Smalltalk Personal Use License Program

The Cincom Smalltalk Personal Use License Program is ideal for developers who are evaluating tools to add to their “developer toolboxes.” With the CST PUL Program, developers receive Cincom Smalltalk, reflecting on the strength of the Cincom brand—a commercial Smalltalk provider for over two decades. The CST 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. 

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®, simplifying the decision-making and making it easy for interested users to select the right Cincom Smalltalk product for their business needs.
  • Allows ObjectStudio users to experience the robust, cross-platform application development environment of VisualWorks.
  • Lets VisualWorks users have easy access to the Next Generation User Interface, Modeling and Mapping Tools and Round-trip Engineering capabilities that are exclusive to ObjectStudio.

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 Tool Can You Use to Replicate or Back Up Your Repository?

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.

In last month’s Hidden Gems screencast, we showed you how to use SQLite as a repository for doing backups or for sharing and transporting Smalltalk classes and code. 

This month, we follow that up by showing you a Store replication tool that you can use to back up your whole (or select parts) repository.  We use an SQLite repository as the target. 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.

Component of the Month: StoreForGlorpReplication

Component of the Month: RBTabbed Toolsets

Last month we highlighted the RBTabbed Toolsets. That tool is in an area on the Cincom Smalltalk website where we showcase contributed component items from customers, partners and users.

This month, we are highlighting StoreForGlorpReplication, which is a tool that allows you to choose and select bundles and packages (or everything) and replicate them from one Store repository to another. This month’s featured Hidden Gems screencast demonstrates how to use the contributed tool StoreForGlorpReplication

  • To learn more about other Contributed Components, click here.

Have You Developed an Add-on or Application Using Cincom Smalltalk that May Add Value for Others?

Are you ready to Contribute to Cincom Smalltalk?

Cincom Smalltalk developers often create great tools, enhancements, frameworks, examples and applications, and like to share them, get recognition for them or receive suggestions for improvement. We’ve recently enhanced the Contributed Components section of our website:

  • To highlight these contributed items from customers, partners and users
  • To give more detail for each item
  • To present 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.

Re-organizing this section on our website:

  • Allows these items to be more searchable and easier to find so that other developers can use them
  • Provides more visibility and usage of Contributed Items
  • Provides potential for success stories, articles or Hidden Gems screencasts being developed for them
  • Helps to give valuable exposure and further promote our users, their work and their applications to a much wider audience

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.

Developer Events that May Interest You

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

  • September 8, 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 and 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 Specific You Are Looking for?

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.