Visual Works Smalltalk

VisualWorks is a dialect of SmalltalkLanguage sold by Cincom as part of Cincom Smalltalk.

It started in XeroxParc back in the '70s and was first released as Smalltalk-80. A startup was spun out of Xerox called ParcPlace to commercialize Smalltalk, and they called their product Objectworks, then renaming it to VisualWorks in 1994. ParcPlace changed its name a few times (ParcPlace-Digitalk, ObjectShare), and then sold it's Smalltalk business including VisualWorks to Cincom.

You can download VisualWorksNonCommercial for free.

If you are learning Smalltalk with VisualWorks, RalphJohnson recommends Smalltalk: An Introduction to Application Development Using VisualWorks by TrevorHopkins? and BernardHoran? ISBN 0133183874 .

There are a wide range of free books available for Smalltalk thanks to the efforts of Stephane Ducasse.

See other SmalltalkImplementations.

The newsgroup is news:comp.lang.smalltalk

The home page for VisualWorks is http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com

There is a number of blogs at http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs . The blog is VisualWorks powered. In addition http://planet.smalltalk.org/ aggregates most Smalltalk blogs.

As stated near the bottom, VW 7 and up have the Refactoring Browser as the core browser.

RalphJohnson says at http://wiki.cs.uiuc.edu/VisualWorks/Get+and+unzip

I prefer 3.0 to 5i because the browsers work better. The 5i browser had to be completely redone and still has some problems. Moreover, the Refactoring Browser doesn't work yet for 5i. 5i has a lot of neat features, but I get the feeling that it is still beta software when I use it.

[re: VWNC5i] Does anyone else find the namespaces unintuitive? I spent 20 minutes today trying to find a class I had just added. I couldn't take it. Now I'm looking at Squeak. -- SunirShah

Just switch to 3.0. And download the RefactoringBrowser. All will be well. --AnthonyLander

Um, did you try "Find...". Finds any class in any namespace quite nicely. For that matter, use "Browse All Classes" and get a list by category irrespective of namespace. -- AlanKnight

JoyOfSmalltalk is a VisualWorks-based textbook available online from the VisualWorks wiki.

RefactoringBrowser works good with VisualWorks 7.0, which also has non-commercial version. The whole environment was also improved and now looks better. Connectivity tools in VisualWorks 7.0 shine. Notable addition is full support of WebServices. OpenTalk? framework seems very promising to me -- PavelPerikov

VisualWorks 7.2 is out has preview of Pollock - the new GUI framework (currently beta3), GLORP - GenericLightweightObjectRelationalPersistence?, .NET Connect etc. Many minor tools improvements.

VisualWorks 7.1 is out

Note: VisualWorks 7.1 is out now... NC CDs and all. It's very nice.. several big & small improvements. -- DaveAstels

"Now on VisualWorks 7.6 with 7.7 due Oct/Nov 09"

See VisualWorksWiki

Are there any quickstart guides to VW? I'm playing with OpenTalk? at the moment and there is a total of ONE useful example on the whole bloody damned web about it. The only guide I found was for 5i and starts by telling you to click on the OpenTalk? Launcher, which doesn't exist as far as I can tell. And the PDF only works as an intro to the subject in general and reference, not a guide per se. This is endemic to all serious frameworks and tools near as I can tell. (Oh, and I know Cincom's planning to make quickstart guides but I'm not long on patience.) -- RK

CategorySmalltalk CategoryLanguageImplementation