PF> November 29, 1995 3:50 p.m.

 PF> Taligent slated to become IBM subsidiary; big layoffs expected

 PF> By Charles Cooper (PCWEEK)

 PF> Taligent Inc. will become a wholly owned subsidiary of IBM, according to
 PF> sources who say the announcement will be made Thursday.

The Taligent CommonPoint cpConstructor tool is supposed to be available in
an OS/2 version on December 15.  The price is $2999. I'm not sure what the
cost is for run-time system licensing.

I'm trying to find out if cpProfessional for OS/2 is available and how much
it will cost.  So far it doesn't sound like it is included with the
CommonPoint for OS/2 package that is to be available on December 15.

The cpConstructor tool is basically a user interface builder, whereas
cpProfessional is a C++ development environment that provides incremental
C++ compilation, integrated configuration/revision management, automatic
make (and does it down to the level of individual functions), and C++ aware
browsers and editors.  It sounds like a really nice environment, something
like a cross of a Smalltalk programming environment with a C++ compiler.

I've used VisualAge Smalltalk 1.0 briefly.  While I really
liked being able to make changes and run the project a moment later, the
error messages triggered by programming mistakes were really bizarre and
Smalltalk syntax is also pretty weird compared to all the languages I've
used in the past (C, C++, various assembly languages, BASIC, Pascal,
FORTRAN, REXX, Ada, etc.). Therefore cpProfessional seems like it would be
the ideal
setup for me.

However, so far I have not been able to find anybody who has used either
cpConstructor or cpProfessional, although by comments in the press it
sounds like Randall Flint at Sundial Systems might be using them.  $3000 is
a lot of money to risk on a tool that might not be what I want, so I'm very
hesitant to put out that kind of money without having a lot more
information, some experienced opinions, and preferably a chance to try the
tools myself.


--- Maximus/2 2.02