6 ms·

This is demonstrably false. MacOS Copland was scrapped in favor of a descendant of NeXTSTEP that became MacOS X. Hundreds (thousands?) of API calls in both Des

by rwc 10y ago

This is demonstrably false. MacOS Copland was scrapped in favor of a descendant of NeXTSTEP that became MacOS X. Hundreds (thousands?) of API calls in both Desktop iOS development are prefaced NS_ ... that is NeXTSTEP

sengork 10y ago
This internal demonstration of NeXTSTEP shows just how much this similarity applies to what the end-user sees in macOS/OS X as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveTy4EmNyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveTy4EmNyk
pavlov 10y ago
This is ridiculous pedantry, but the "NS" prefix actually means "Next / Sun". It was introduced in OpenStep [1], which was supposed to become Sun's GUI layer on Solaris until Java happened. Before the OpenStep revamp, the class prefix used in NeXTSTEP was "NX". I think there are still some lingering NX* classes/functions you might see in AppKit stack traces. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStep
- Apocryphon 10y ago
  That's an amazing factoid. "NS" standing for NeXTSTEP would then be a popular misconception, then. It also introduces an interesting hypothetical of what if Sun ended up adopting OpenStep, if Java was not developed in time or fell through or whatever.
  - jahewson 10y ago
    Actually it's just a fact! A factoid is something which sounds like a fact but is actually false.
    - mypalmike 10y ago
      I always thought a factoid was a tiny fact. Merriam Webster actually lists both meanings (small fact and non-fact). https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factoid https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factoid
  - ksherlock 10y ago
    The OpenStep spec was a collaboration between NeXT and Sun. OpenStep was available as a full OS (for 68k NeXT hardware and 486 beige PCs) as well as running on top of Solaris (SPARC), HPUX, and Windows NT. Sun went with Java instead but Microsoft has a WinObjC project. Go Figure. Until 10.7 or so, OS X still included Windows NT theme graphics [1]. NeXTStep 3.0 used the NS namespace; 2.0 and earlier was NX. [1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/mac_images/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/mac_images/
    - mycall 10y ago
      TIL WinObjC is alive and well. https://github.com/Microsoft/WinObjC https://github.com/Microsoft/WinObjC
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    You can get some information how Objective-C related to Java at Sun, by the original Java team. https://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/stuff/java-objc.html https://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/stuff/java-objc.html
- protomyth 10y ago
  I think people forget that NeXT and its OS had some time to evolve. NeXT had .8 in 1988 and 1.0 in 1989. So, we are talking 8ish years of evolution and API changes. Going from the pre-web to WebObjects and its influence on the API.
- doug1001 10y ago
  nice one--just checked your source and you're absolutely correct. I'm not a Mac OS so i had no idea how Cocoa methods were prefixed, but i recall listening to a reply of session from the Apple developer conference around 2007 in which a fairly senior apple dev, which giving brief summary of the history of Cocoa, said more or less that "NS" stands for NextStep"
mikey_p 10y ago
Yes at the time all the major mac magazines were acknowledging that it looked like Copland would never ship, but the question was whether to replace it with NeXTSTEP or BeOS. Both had strong ties to former Apple execs with obviously Jobs being the bigger draw at NeXT, but Jean-Louis Gassée at Be was not to be discounted either. Both Jobs and Gassée were both forced out by Sculley who alot of people credit with driving Apple toward the mediocrity that defined it in the mid 90s. The other big factor at the time was the fact that BeOS ran on PowerPC, and NeXTSTEP did not. NeXT had done some work to produce their own hardware with dual 601s, but never shipped it and abandoned that work to focus on the IBM PC hardware. This meant that the first few years of the Apple/NeXT merger were spent just getting NeXTSTEP running on PowerPC. The biggest buzz of the time was that even though Steve's return to Apple had killed the growing Mac clone industry, maybe Rhapsody would run on x86 hardware. There were rumors all over that they would make this happen, although they were many years too early, as Apple wouldn't make that switch until 2005.

by rwc 10y ago

sengork 10y ago

This internal demonstration of NeXTSTEP shows just how much this similarity applies to what the end-user sees in macOS/OS X as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveTy4EmNyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveTy4EmNyk

pavlov 10y ago

This is ridiculous pedantry, but the "NS" prefix actually means "Next / Sun". It was introduced in OpenStep [1], which was supposed to become Sun's GUI layer on Solaris until Java happened. Before the OpenStep revamp, the class prefix used in NeXTSTEP was "NX". I think there are still some lingering NX* classes/functions you might see in AppKit stack traces. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStep

Apocryphon 10y ago
That's an amazing factoid. "NS" standing for NeXTSTEP would then be a popular misconception, then. It also introduces an interesting hypothetical of what if Sun ended up adopting OpenStep, if Java was not developed in time or fell through or whatever.
- jahewson 10y ago
  Actually it's just a fact! A factoid is something which sounds like a fact but is actually false.
  - mypalmike 10y ago
    I always thought a factoid was a tiny fact. Merriam Webster actually lists both meanings (small fact and non-fact). https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factoid https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factoid
- ksherlock 10y ago
  The OpenStep spec was a collaboration between NeXT and Sun. OpenStep was available as a full OS (for 68k NeXT hardware and 486 beige PCs) as well as running on top of Solaris (SPARC), HPUX, and Windows NT. Sun went with Java instead but Microsoft has a WinObjC project. Go Figure. Until 10.7 or so, OS X still included Windows NT theme graphics [1]. NeXTStep 3.0 used the NS namespace; 2.0 and earlier was NX. [1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/mac_images/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/mac_images/
  - mycall 10y ago
    TIL WinObjC is alive and well. https://github.com/Microsoft/WinObjC https://github.com/Microsoft/WinObjC
- pjmlp 10y ago
  You can get some information how Objective-C related to Java at Sun, by the original Java team. https://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/stuff/java-objc.html https://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/stuff/java-objc.html
protomyth 10y ago
I think people forget that NeXT and its OS had some time to evolve. NeXT had .8 in 1988 and 1.0 in 1989. So, we are talking 8ish years of evolution and API changes. Going from the pre-web to WebObjects and its influence on the API.
doug1001 10y ago
nice one--just checked your source and you're absolutely correct. I'm not a Mac OS so i had no idea how Cocoa methods were prefixed, but i recall listening to a reply of session from the Apple developer conference around 2007 in which a fairly senior apple dev, which giving brief summary of the history of Cocoa, said more or less that "NS" stands for NextStep"

mikey_p 10y ago

Yes at the time all the major mac magazines were acknowledging that it looked like Copland would never ship, but the question was whether to replace it with NeXTSTEP or BeOS. Both had strong ties to former Apple execs with obviously Jobs being the bigger draw at NeXT, but Jean-Louis Gassée at Be was not to be discounted either. Both Jobs and Gassée were both forced out by Sculley who alot of people credit with driving Apple toward the mediocrity that defined it in the mid 90s. The other big factor at the time was the fact that BeOS ran on PowerPC, and NeXTSTEP did not. NeXT had done some work to produce their own hardware with dual 601s, but never shipped it and abandoned that work to focus on the IBM PC hardware. This meant that the first few years of the Apple/NeXT merger were spent just getting NeXTSTEP running on PowerPC. The biggest buzz of the time was that even though Steve's return to Apple had killed the growing Mac clone industry, maybe Rhapsody would run on x86 hardware. There were rumors all over that they would make this happen, although they were many years too early, as Apple wouldn't make that switch until 2005.