3 ms·

I 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

by jmull 9y ago

I 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 ago
Yeah, I've also heard that NS stands for "NeXT Software, Inc" vs "NeXT, Inc"
tcdent 9y ago
This 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 ago
  I 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 ago
    Yeah, 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.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]