VisualWorks

VisualWorks had one notable cross-platform development feature in that it could mimic the look and feel of the other operating systems it supported from any of their platforms, so you could design your program on OS/2 and test how it would function on Motif or Windows.

History

Objectworks was renamed to VisualWorks in 1994. After the merger of VisualWorks developer ParcPlace Systems and Digitalk a version was released under the name VisualWave that integrated the development system with Smalltalk libraries developed by Digitalk. These included mainly web development tools but also a host of others, and existing VisualWorks customers could buy it as an upgrade. While this package could develop for OS/2 as a target, it is not certain if a native OS/2 hosted version was ever shipped.

The VisualWorks product line was acquired by Cincom in 1999 who have sold and developed it since, although active development has slowed down considerably as the company places more emphasis on their own in house developed Smalltalk system for MS Windows.

Versions

• 1.0 (Oct 1992) - Windows 3.1, Apple System 7, SunOS, IBM AIX/6000, HP-UX, Digital Ultrix, Sequent

  OS/2 version (Jan 1993)

• 2.0 (1994) - added Database Application Creator a visual RAD database development system and a tighter OS/2 and Windows integration.

  Windows 3.1, Windows NT, Macintosh, Power Macintosh, OS/2

  SunOS, Solaris, HP/UX, IBM AIX/6000, Digital UNIX

• 2.5 (Oct 1995)
  • 2.5.1 (1996)
  • 2.5.2
  • 2.5.2c

Other operating systems:

• 3.0 (Mar 1998)
• VisualWorks 3.1 for Linux (1999)
• VisualWorks 5i (1999)
• 7.4 (2005)
• 8.0 - supports MS Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, Solaris and AIX
• 8.3 (Sep 2017)
• 9.0

Add-ons and utilities

• Sina/st - OO abstraction language - Open source
• Objectworks FACETS - Library and utilities collection
• Versant Argos - IDE/RAD and OO Database system

Licence

• Commercial, OS/2 and MacOS version discontinued; Unix, MacOS X and MS Windows versions still available.
• A freeware version is available for download with a no commercial usage clause.

Author

• ParcPlace Systems, ParcPlace-Digitalk, ObjectShare (1992-1999)
• Cincom

Related Articles

Local articles

• ParcPlace Systems Announcement

External articles

• A review of VisualWorks - From InfoWorld 1993 - Part of a "Component software" review.
• Buyer's Scorecard: ParcPlace's Objectworks tops users satisfaction ratings - Computerworld (1993-06-14)

Publications

• Tim Howard: The Smalltalk Developer's Guide to VisualWorks - SIGS 1995, ISBN 1-884842-11-9
• Trevor Hopkins; Bernard Horan: Smalltalk: An Introduction to Application Development Using VisualWorks - Prentice-Hall 1995, ISBN 0-13-318387-4

Links

• Cincom VisualWorks homepage