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From this story I take away: - A Sr. Marketing staff member saw technical deficiencies in the project and pulled a _complete 180°_ literally days before showti

From this story I take away: - A Sr. Marketing staff member saw technical deficiencies in the project and pulled a _complete 180°_ literally days before showtime in front of a huge client, successfully. - Jobs pushed his workers hard.. though the ends justify the means - The NeXT computer pioneered nearly everything we take for granted today (mouse, networking, Objective C) in a package targeted at the high end consumer. Sound familiar? Brilliant. [edit: clarify meaning]

PunchTornado 8y ago
I don't think anyone takes for granted Objective C today. It's not used but for legacy code. Awful thing anyway.
- ams6110 8y ago
  Hardly awful. It was message dispatch object oriented programming. It allowed development of what was essentially the Mac OS X operating system and applications, in the early 1990s. Software that ran on a 25Mhz Motorola 68040. Years before Windows 95, and far more advanced and cohesive and productive than any other desktop computing platform. HTTP and web browsing was invented on a NeXT computer.
- wingerlang 8y ago
  What makes you think it is used only for legacy code?
- jonhendry18 8y ago
  If Taligent had used Objective-C instead of C++ they might have actually shipped something.
awinder 8y ago
Why the mouse? That was a holdover from Steve’s time at Apple, which was famously “borrowed” from Xerox PARC. Unless next did something special with the mouse that I’m unaware of.
- rahoulb 8y ago
  "borrowed" - Apple paid Xerox in stock to have access to their technologies. Jobs said later that he took away the GUI and the mouse, when he really should have taken away the networking and Smalltalk. That's why NeXT used BSD under the hood and Objective-C as its development environment.
  - awinder 8y ago
    Huh I didn’t know about the stock angle. Apparently it was a purchase agreement since they were pre-IPO, not a giveaway. So he got some pre-ipo financing and a look at great research tech. Very cool deal, thanks for the pointer.

PunchTornado 8y ago

I don't think anyone takes for granted Objective C today. It's not used but for legacy code. Awful thing anyway.

ams6110 8y ago
Hardly awful. It was message dispatch object oriented programming. It allowed development of what was essentially the Mac OS X operating system and applications, in the early 1990s. Software that ran on a 25Mhz Motorola 68040. Years before Windows 95, and far more advanced and cohesive and productive than any other desktop computing platform. HTTP and web browsing was invented on a NeXT computer.
wingerlang 8y ago
What makes you think it is used only for legacy code?
jonhendry18 8y ago
If Taligent had used Objective-C instead of C++ they might have actually shipped something.

awinder 8y ago

Why the mouse? That was a holdover from Steve’s time at Apple, which was famously “borrowed” from Xerox PARC. Unless next did something special with the mouse that I’m unaware of.

rahoulb 8y ago
"borrowed" - Apple paid Xerox in stock to have access to their technologies. Jobs said later that he took away the GUI and the mouse, when he really should have taken away the networking and Smalltalk. That's why NeXT used BSD under the hood and Objective-C as its development environment.
- awinder 8y ago
  Huh I didn’t know about the stock angle. Apparently it was a purchase agreement since they were pre-IPO, not a giveaway. So he got some pre-ipo financing and a look at great research tech. Very cool deal, thanks for the pointer.