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Bear in mind the first web servers in the early days of the web were probably running on something of a similar CPU power to a 386.

There was a NeXT-feature on OSNews recently. You can even still download WorldWideWeb.app, Tim Berners-Lee's browser for the NeXT. Maybe it is even possible to compile it with GNUStep or on OS X. I don't know if it would be legal, however, the sources do not contain any license information.

Uh, which article?

Mac OS X is an updated version of OpenStep. Mac OS X is a series of libraries that sit on top of an operating system called Darwin. Darwin is derived from 4.4BSD-Lite and uses the OSF Mach microkernel. This underlying operating system was called Mach by NeXT back when it was their product.

section from the Peanuts NeXT FAQ might be helpful.

if there's such a nice API and software development tools, why was nothing ever developed with it.

Because plenty of stuff *has* been developed with it. You're just ignorant of them. For example, it has been heavily used in the intelligence industry and on Wall Street. And I'm sure you've probably heard of Mac OS X, right? Guess what the primary development platform is. You should check out Softrak and the peanuts FTP archive some time too. And maybe the OMNI Group and some others. Is there as much software as there is for Windows? No. Is that because MFC is a superior development platform? Pffffft. It's because Microsoft has the marketing muscle and lock-in advantage (and an awful lot of luck thrown in for good measure).

And why is every application that was developed as part of it so primitive and un-user friendly.

You've never used any of this stuff, have you? There are some quite attractive and usable applications out there. GNUmail is very nice, for instance, and was developed primarily by one author in a very short period of time. Are there poorly designed UIs as well? Of course. But that's the fault of those who design. And that happens everywhere--UNIX, Windows, Mac OS, BeOS, etc.

Is it just a coincidence that it was a brilliant platformed developed by people with no design sense.

I find it to be quite elegant looking. But at any rate, I was talking about the API. Y'know, stuff like Array and String classes and responder chains. Stuff you don't actually "see". How it actually looks is not set in stone. That's why Mac OS X looks completely different but is built on the same basic classes as OPENSTEP or GNUstep.

There are a few mirrors of the GNUstep pages. Choose the one that is closest to you:
Georgia, USA, France, Europe, Germany, Europe.

GNUstep is an attempt to provide an Object-Oriented application development framework and tool set for use on a wide variety of computer platforms. GNUstep is based on the original OpenStep specification provided by NeXT, Inc. (now Apple).

GNUstep is written in Objective-C, the language from which the Signal/Slot concept of Qt was borrowed. Objective-C is basically standard C with one single syntax addition and a dozen or so additional keywords. That is all that is needed to implement an object system that is more powerful than that of that other language. In Objective-C all method calls are done via a mechanism that is similar to, but slighly more efficient than, the signal/slot mechanism of Qt. This has some interesting implications for the implementation of remote method invocation, on object serialization and some other things that are very hip in a Corba context.

Like Nextstep, GNUstep has a record of technical excellence that even today is unmatched by any other object framework, and of abysmal PR performance (also unmatched :-). A current commercial implementation of the same API (same API, different code) is the foundation of MacOS X.

GLUT and Mesa have been ported to Mac OS X Server. See http://www.peanuts.org/p eanuts/MacOSX/developer/framework/.

What is GNUstep?

GNUstep is an attempt to provide an Object-Oriented application development framework and tool set for use on a wide variety of computer platforms. GNUstep is based on the original OpenStep specification provided by NeXT, Inc. (now Apple).

GNUstep is written in Objective-C, the language from which the Signal/Slot concept of Qt was borrowed. Objective-C is basically standard C with one single syntax addition and a dozen or so additional keywords. That is all that is needed to implement an object system that is more powerful than that of that other language. In Objective-C all method calls are done via a mechanism that is similar to, but slighly more efficient than, the signal/slot mechanism of Qt. This has some interesting implications for the implementation of remote method invocation, on object serialization and some other things that are very hip in a Corba context.

Like Nextstep, GNUstep has a record of technical excellence that even today is unmatched by any other object framework, and of abysmal PR performance (also unmatched :-). A current commercial implementation of the same API (same API, different code) is the foundation of MacOS X.

i.e. are all the gnu utilities easy to port over, do we get a bash prompt? can we compile ssh,gcc??

Oh it sucks that it won't run 'carbon' tho. :(

i.e. are all the gnu utilities easy to port over, do we get a bash prompt? can we compile ssh,gcc??

Oh it sucks that it won't run 'carbon' tho. :(

i.e. are all the gnu utilities easy to port over, do we get a bash prompt? can we compile ssh,gcc??

Oh it sucks that it won't run 'carbon' tho. :(