4 ms·

Stats show 72% Objective-C and 10% C. What benefits does Objective-C over C that makes this a language of choice for this project? And what parts are implemente

by mxer 2y ago

Stats show 72% Objective-C and 10% C. What benefits does Objective-C over C that makes this a language of choice for this project? And what parts are implemented in C? Can someone share some info about this?

jmole 2y ago
NeXT invented Objective-C and encouraged its use, and the object-oriented paradigm was as popular back then as rust is today. It was just trendy to do so.
- ck45 2y ago
  They did not invent it, it was developed at PPI (later Stepstone), before NeXT was founded.
  - WillAdams 2y ago
    To a great degree, NeXT was comprised of an assemblage of talent and technologies which Steve Jobs put together: - Mach microkernel --- Avie Tevanian may well be the most heavily recruited computer science student in history with offers from AT&T, IBM, Microsoft, and NeXT - Interface Builder --- Jean-Marie Hullot originally did a graphical layout system for developing on the Mac - Display PostScript --- to a great degree, NeXT was responsible for this - Objective-C --- as noted elsethread this was worked up by Brad Cox at Stepstone and, of course they licensed Unix from AT&T (and other bits from other sources such as a Pantone color library, or Webster's dictionary for Webster.app, and Mathematica from Wolfram was included early on). Wish my Cube hadn't stopped booting up...
    - jksmith 2y ago
      >- Display PostScript --- to a great degree, NeXT was responsible for this Confirm, got to see a live demo at Comdex ATL back in 1992? Mind blown.
      - WillAdams 2y ago
        Quartz, née Display PDF is a nice alternative (and is probably even more reliable these days), but I still miss Display PostScript and the ability to program custom fills/strokes and so forth --- huge potential security hole as Frank Siegert's "Project Akira" showed though.
  - nequo 2y ago
    Yes. The Computer History Museum has a two part interview with Steve Naroff, one of the engineers who worked on Objective C: https://youtu.be/ljx0Zh7eidE https://youtu.be/ljx0Zh7eidE https://youtu.be/vrRCY6vwvbU https://youtu.be/vrRCY6vwvbU
ck45 2y ago
NeXTStep was famous for rapid application development. The framework combined with Interface Builder, a GUI builder, is just magic. I read a quote a while ago, Berners-Lee saying that without NeXTStep he couldn't have built the project. Unfortunately I can't find any reference anymore. Edit: Seems somebody else found it, see other comments.
WillAdams 2y ago
There's a book on Objective-C: https://goodreads.com/book/show/1945013.Object_Oriented_Programming https://goodreads.com/book/show/1945013.Object_Oriented_Prog... and also see the magazine articles: - “No Silver Bullet – Essence and Accident in Software Engineering.”. Fredrick P. Brooks, Jr. and the rebuttal: - "There IS a Silver Bullet" by Brad Cox from Byte magazine – the October 1990 issue: https://theopensourcery.com/there-is-a-silver-bullet/ https://theopensourcery.com/there-is-a-silver-bullet/ Basically it was Smalltalk bolted onto C and with the elegant and robust NeXT frameworks meant that much of an application's functionality was provided by the underlying system which was revolutionary at the time. From a different discussion: >A quick overview of Interface Builder is Steve Job's demo for NeXT --- perhaps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl0CbKYUFTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl0CbKYUFTY > >where they discuss how dragging/drawing allows one to make 80% of the app, and the balance of 20% is one's own code. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40966774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40966774

by mxer 2y ago

jmole 2y ago

NeXT invented Objective-C and encouraged its use, and the object-oriented paradigm was as popular back then as rust is today. It was just trendy to do so.

ck45 2y ago
They did not invent it, it was developed at PPI (later Stepstone), before NeXT was founded.
- WillAdams 2y ago
  To a great degree, NeXT was comprised of an assemblage of talent and technologies which Steve Jobs put together: - Mach microkernel --- Avie Tevanian may well be the most heavily recruited computer science student in history with offers from AT&T, IBM, Microsoft, and NeXT - Interface Builder --- Jean-Marie Hullot originally did a graphical layout system for developing on the Mac - Display PostScript --- to a great degree, NeXT was responsible for this - Objective-C --- as noted elsethread this was worked up by Brad Cox at Stepstone and, of course they licensed Unix from AT&T (and other bits from other sources such as a Pantone color library, or Webster's dictionary for Webster.app, and Mathematica from Wolfram was included early on). Wish my Cube hadn't stopped booting up...
  - jksmith 2y ago
    >- Display PostScript --- to a great degree, NeXT was responsible for this Confirm, got to see a live demo at Comdex ATL back in 1992? Mind blown.
    - WillAdams 2y ago
      Quartz, née Display PDF is a nice alternative (and is probably even more reliable these days), but I still miss Display PostScript and the ability to program custom fills/strokes and so forth --- huge potential security hole as Frank Siegert's "Project Akira" showed though.
- nequo 2y ago
  Yes. The Computer History Museum has a two part interview with Steve Naroff, one of the engineers who worked on Objective C: https://youtu.be/ljx0Zh7eidE https://youtu.be/ljx0Zh7eidE https://youtu.be/vrRCY6vwvbU https://youtu.be/vrRCY6vwvbU

ck45 2y ago

NeXTStep was famous for rapid application development. The framework combined with Interface Builder, a GUI builder, is just magic. I read a quote a while ago, Berners-Lee saying that without NeXTStep he couldn't have built the project. Unfortunately I can't find any reference anymore. Edit: Seems somebody else found it, see other comments.

WillAdams 2y ago

There's a book on Objective-C: https://goodreads.com/book/show/1945013.Object_Oriented_Programming https://goodreads.com/book/show/1945013.Object_Oriented_Prog... and also see the magazine articles: - “No Silver Bullet – Essence and Accident in Software Engineering.”. Fredrick P. Brooks, Jr. and the rebuttal: - "There IS a Silver Bullet" by Brad Cox from Byte magazine – the October 1990 issue: https://theopensourcery.com/there-is-a-silver-bullet/ https://theopensourcery.com/there-is-a-silver-bullet/ Basically it was Smalltalk bolted onto C and with the elegant and robust NeXT frameworks meant that much of an application's functionality was provided by the underlying system which was revolutionary at the time. From a different discussion: >A quick overview of Interface Builder is Steve Job's demo for NeXT --- perhaps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl0CbKYUFTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl0CbKYUFTY > >where they discuss how dragging/drawing allows one to make 80% of the app, and the balance of 20% is one's own code. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40966774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40966774