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To this day, people still joke that this was a reverse-acquisition of Apple by NeXT, as Apple entirely switched their software to NeXT's. For the unaware, this
by AceJohnny2 9y ago
To this day, people still joke that this was a reverse-acquisition of Apple by NeXT, as Apple entirely switched their software to NeXT's.
For the unaware, this is why the macOS/iOS APIs are prefixed with NS (NSObject, NSString...), for NeXTSTEP.
I believe iTunes is still based on WebObjects.
- pavlov 9y agoActually NS is short for "NeXT & Sun". The prefix was adopted for OpenStep: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStep The pre-OpenStep version of the APIs used a NX prefix. You can still see some lingering NX* classes/functions in macOS stack traces.
- saagarjha 9y agoHuh, interesting. I came across NXHashMap in the Objective-C runtime documentation and was wondering what the "NX" stood for.
- jmull 9y agoI can’t find a source for NS meaning NeXT and Sun either in the article you linked or elsewhere (sorry if I missed it). I get there was a name change associated with OPENSTEP, where the prefix changed from NX- to NS- and makes some sense because otherwise wouldn’t the prefix change for OPENSTEP have been something like OS- or OP-? I’m just wondering about the source for this. It would be interesting to hear from someone privy to reasoning behind choice of prefix.
- mattl 9y agoYeah, I've also heard that NS stands for "NeXT Software, Inc" vs "NeXT, Inc"
- tcdent 9y agoThis Wikipedia article [0] mentions both, but doesn't conclude. Would be interesting to hear from someone who was actually there to settle it; I haven't been convinced of a consensus either way. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_(API)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_(API)#History
- IncRnd 9y agoI learned to program NeXTSTEP on NeXTSTEP 3.x at NeXT’s weeklong developer training camp. The API had NS prefixes, both in the files and the developer books. The first OpenStep release was 4.0.
- protomyth 9y agoYeah, I pretty sure that the NX -> NS transition was before OPENSTEP (NeXT & Sun) and corresponded with retain-release. I too started with 3.x and it was NS then.
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- SeanLuke 9y agoI believe the NS prefix dated from NeXTSTEP 3.0 (1992), well before Sun was ever involved with NeXT. So far as I know, NS stands for NextStep.
- hsm3 9y agoI was leading the AppKit group at NeXT at the time, and "NS" definitely came before the Sun relationship, referring to NextStep (or NeXTSTEP, the spelling changed every release). I distinctly remember our team expecting we'd have to suck it up and change the prefix to something more neutral when the Sun deal was made, and then being surprised that they didn't seem to care when the spec was discussed. Maybe the alternate interpretation of "NeXT and Sun" satisfied them, but I don't remember that expression ever being commonly used, and it was not the original basis for NS.
- pavlov 9y agoThank you, that settles it then. I've heard the "NeXT & Sun" story from several sources for at least 15 years -- I had no idea it's apocryphal.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mattl 9y agoYeah, the iTunes store is still WebObjects. Project Wonder is community supported additions + fixes to WebObjects. https://github.com/wocommunity/wonder https://github.com/wocommunity/wonder Meanwhile, I found this hat on eBay yesterday: https://i.imgur.com/CuInqYo.png https://i.imgur.com/CuInqYo.png
- qubex 9y agoReally?! I knew it had been used originally, but I assumed it had been rebuilt with something new back when Apple deprecated WebObjects in 2009... I'm amazed they're still using it.
- mattl 9y agoThere's also http://www.treasureboat.org/App/WebObjects/Kisa.woa/cms/roadmap http://www.treasureboat.org/App/WebObjects/Kisa.woa/cms/road... which is a framework built on top of Wonder which is very actively developed (on a private GitHub right now, but you can get access signing up for a $15 Udemy course)
- hugi 9y agoYou shouldn't be that amazed - WebObjects is still very much very awesome. And it's practically an open source framework these days, with new development happening in Project Wonder. But the barrier of entry is a bit high due to lack of documentation, although the community is very helpful on the mailinglists.
- threeseed 9y agoI also believe Apple Online Store still uses parts of WebObjects. Not the full blown EOF, WOF that iTunes uses however.
- gsnedders 9y agoDo we know if the iTunes store is an Apple maintained fork of WebObjects or if it is using Wonder? (Also, hi Matt!)
- 9y ago
- fzn 9y agoI tought iTunes was based on SoundJam MP.
- blutfink 9y agoThe cost of a WebObjects deployment license was about $50,000 then.
- adrianmonk 9y agoWell, I think that was a huge part of the point of the acquisition. Apple knew for a long time it needed to replace classic Mac OS, which didn't have modern OS features. It started the Pink project internally to make a next-generation operating system, and eventually in the early to mid 90s, that got spun out into Taligent, the joint venture between Apple and IBM (and later others). Then Taligent didn't pan out for a variety of reasons. Specifically why is another question, but here it's sufficient to say that Apple decided it certainly wasn't the direction they wanted to go. Taligent ended up being handed off to IBM and repurposed as a rapid app development tool that sat on top of other operating systems (AIX, I guess, mainly) instead of a standalone operating system. As I recall, Apple may have tried to internally do its own second attempt at a next-generation operating system, essentially a competing project to Taligent, but that didn't work out either. So that left Apple in the mid-90s but still stuck on an operating system that was rooted in the 1980s and really, really showing its age. And a lot of it was Motorola 68k only (it was never meant to be portable), but Apple had already started to make the shift to PowerPC CPUs. So there was another reason it was time to start fresh. After at least one if not two failed attempts to come up with their own next-gen OS, here was this company founded by a former Apple luminary, with an operating system sitting there ready to go. NeXTSTEP was already portable enough to run on both 68k and x86 at that time, and once you've got two platforms, you can have pretty high confidence that a third (PowerPC) would be feasible. And I don't think NeXT had great long-term prospects with a standalone platform on its own.
- kalleboo 9y agoThey were also very close to buying Be instead, but didn't due to Jean-Louis Gassée pushing for too high a price http://macspeedzone.com/archive/art/con/be.shtml http://macspeedzone.com/archive/art/con/be.shtml
- eloisant 9y agoI'm very curious what would have happen if Apple had bought Be instead. On one hand it was a much modern OS because build from scratch in the 90's rather based one the good old Unix, on the other hand OSX being Unix is probably why so many software developers flocked to the mac.
- david-cako 9y agoYeah, and a ton of their developer oriented web portals are as well. Documentation, certificates, App Store distribution, etc.
- zmonkeyz 9y agoCopland is coming, you just gotta believe.