Introducing VA Smalltalk Server This book includes information about the VA Smalltalk Server Workbench (development tools) and the VA Smalltalk Server (server runtime). These features are collectively referred to throughout this book as "VA Smalltalk Server." Information not available in this book is provided in other VA Smalltalk manuals. Smalltalk offers the power of a fully object-oriented modeling environment. With VA Smalltalk Server, the value of enterprise data can be more easily leveraged into a powerful enterprise model of objects. VA Smalltalk Server offers many advantages, including: • Smalltalk-based business logic and enterprise modeling frameworks can be reused to perform the same tasks in server environments that they currently perform on the workstation. • VA Smalltalk Server can be used to run native Linux, Windows, Sun Solaris, or AIX applications, allowing background Smalltalk applications to run while other processing occurs in the foreground. These applications are termed "Native" applications throughout this document. • VA Smalltalk Server also can be used as a transaction programming language to run in environments such as TXSeries for Multiplatforms, or CICS Transaction Server. This enables you to incorporate your business model implementation directly into the transaction application code. • Smalltalk is a high-level, general purpose, object-oriented language used for quick utility and data manipulation programming. It can be used to perform specialized tasks across multiple platforms. This book describes how to develop Smalltalk applications for the Windows, AIX, Sun Solaris, Linux, or CICS environments. You will also learn how to write applications for use with the following: • APPC • CPI-C • DB2 • EXCI • MQ • TCP/IP • Server Smalltalk (SST) • Web Connection The benefit of using VA Smalltalk Server is that you can write server applications on a workstation using a graphical user interface (GUI) and rapid development tools.