10 Years of OpenStep

tarzeau writes "Today, the OpenStep API celebrates its 10th anniversary. What started out as a joint adventure of NeXT and SUN to define an application development standard that would run on all machines, making 'write once, compile everywhere' a reality, is still unfolding within the vivid and active community of GNUstep, old NeXT and Apple lovers. The magic 10 appears in GNUstep's current 1.10.x release and in Apple's Mac OS X 'Cocoa' release. Programmers worldwide can develop their programs on Mac OS, Linux, the BSDs, Solaris, and with a couple of hurdles -- even on Windows. This solid and well-defined standard is reaching out to the world of software development, slowly but surely. Program your applications in days or weeks, rather than years or never. Use the advanced API of a development framework that hasn't needed significant modification for 10 years, because it rocks, is stable and just works."

Comments

Next

[2.7182]

I was a really big Next user, and for me OS X seems to be the natural extension of it. But it was amazing to be using Next machines in the early 90's. They were remarkably ahead of their time.

Re:Next

[Daengbo]

I appreciate the long explanation, but I understood that part and was looking for a wm (not WM, haha) that was based on GnuStep, but there doesn't appear to be anything like that, though several attempts have been made and a distro (Linux-Step?) aborted.

Although this is going to sound a lto like flamebait, it is a real question... Is GnuStep a viable platform? Ten years without a wm based on it? It sounds like a perfect match for the Hurd, a technically superior solution that never goes anywhere and never dies. (OK, maybe the last sentence WAS flamebait)

Re:Call me stupid, but....

[AKAImBatman]

and the cases burned really well due to the fact that they were cast magnesium

Poppycock. The cases were a magnesium alloy. The only way the guy got it to burn was to heat it to several thousand degrees so that the alloy broke down. Not to mention that he had to try it with two different cases, AND use tons of lighter fluid to get one to ignite. :-)

OpenStep vs. KDE and Gnome

[Florian]

It's a pity that, at the peak of the Linux desktop hype in the late 1990s, when evangelists predicted the near death of Microsoft, KDE and Gnome were rushed out of the door, and GNUstep development remained obscure. It was the first time that distributed free software development defected from its proven practice of implementing standardized, proven APIs and technology (like POSIX) and created major APIs of its own. The result is that KDE and Gnome have created APIs that nobody uses for serious large-scale software development projects [except those companies who have large investments into KDE/Gnome themselves, like Ximian with Evolution]. Now KDE and Gnome have a long way to go to clean up and standardize their APIs (via freedesktop.org), usability (via UI guidelines) and code, solving issues that adherence to an existing open GUI specification like OpenStep would have prevented in the first place.

Imagine the massive development efforts on KDE and Gnome, including the massive rewrites of their codebases, would instead had gone into GNUstep, so that the GNU/Linux and *BSD desktop would be OS X/Cocao source compatibile today [and companies developing for OS X port their software to Linux basically with one more compiler run]...

Re:OpenStep vs. KDE and Gnome

[muecksteiner]

The main trouble - then and now - is that the majority of folks simply "don't get it" why OpenStep is superior to crippleware APIs like Qt/KDE.

KDE is "trying to do an improved Windows on Linux" (and taking a lot of its bad design choices with them in the process), while OpenStep is something entirely different. And for an average, M$-infected programmer using something like that would require some re-thinking of some of one's own assumptions how apps should be coded, so most simply don't bother. Sheep, that's what I call them... ;-)

I guess the apathy towards OpenStep also stems from the fact that most people have never seen NeXTStep development in action - it left most witnesses drooling for more - and/or because they're too conventionally-minded to try anything outside their mainstream C++/Java box. To paraphrase a famous quote, "nobody was ever fired for choosing C++", right? And who's ever heard of Objective C - apart from geeks, that is?.

If you're particularly uncharitable you could argue that the selection process which gave us Linux itself followed a similar pattern. There were technologically more advanced and initially cleaner OS projects out there at the time, but somehow the crowd choose a less-than-cutting-edge project they could at least *understand*.

I used NeXTStep for years, and I'm still doing my software development in ObjC - luckily I work in a niche where this is possible. If all others want to make their life difficult - well, that's their choice... ;-)

Just my two euro cents

A.W.

Re:OpenStep vs. KDE and Gnome

[Brandybuck]

You are making gross mischaracterizations about KDE. KDE was started to create a destkop, not an API. The API was merely a pleasant side effect. We're not all a bunch of ex-MFC programmers. Some of us have NEVER written native Windows software.

The apathy towards OpenStep stems from two facts. First, until recently there was no Free OpenStep desktop. There was a Free OpenStep API, but not a desktop. And that API wasn't complete at the time Qt/KDE and GTK+/GNOME became popular. The second reason is Objective C. Despite the good things about the language, you must admit if you have any honesty that it is not a common language. Until the release of OSX is was almost a dead language. People starting with a new API prefer to use a language they know. The most common systems languages are still C and C++.

Qt/KDE is not "crippleware". That's below-the-belt FUD that cheapens your whole argument. Even if you have a small enough mind to truly believe that, stating will only hurt your "cause".

Re:Call me stupid, but....

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Both good examples, but you missed one. Mac OSX.

Re:Call me stupid, but....

[DrXym]

Don't be facetious. Any programmer unfamiliar with the interface builder would sit there boggling at the screen for minutes in total incomprehension. I've used all kinds of UI development tools over the years running the gamut from horrible to sublime. XCode definitely falls near the bottom. Certainly not as bad as trying to visually design a Swing app but close.

Interface builder is not intuitive, it's not even discoverable. Joining objects residing in two separate windows with lines doesn't even make sense from a usability perspective. Even when you eventually figure out how to create classes and join them up to buttons, it is non-obvious how that maps onto actual code. On top of these problems you have to learn a new language just to be able to get your UI to do anything. If the documentation & help system were up to snuff it might shorten the learning curve but they're not - it takes seconds to do a search on MSDN, so why does it takes minutes on OS X?

Thus, the new programmer is faced with an unfamiliar language, an unfamiliar metaphor for UI building, and an unfamiliar framework with bad documentation. I haven't seen such an uncompromising and steep learning curve for a long time. And all that to programme a supposedly user friendly OS.

So yes I do think it is non obvious. In my case it was the first time I actually had to buy a book ("Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X") before I could even figure out what was happening. I haven't seen XCode 2.0 it has to be said, but I sure hope they intend to make it easier to use. Even a few wizards with common design patterns might help somewhat.

annoyed

[phoxix]

why does GNUstep need to have a top devel dir in my home directory ? Why couldn't it be a freaking dot-dir like every other program ?

it seems a bit arrogant to me that something needs its own directory in the root of my home directory.

I don't even use GNUstep, but its always there. It keeps coming back too, after I remove it.

Sunny Dubey

Re:Qt acheived this already

[OmniVector]

any program worth his shit should have no trouble picking up objective-c (a far simpler and more powerful language than c++). the language barrier really isn't an issue. it's more an issue of mindshare. there are a lot of things that are better in the computing world by design but get largely ignored due to lack of marketing.

80% of all software is custom built

[KamuSan]

OpenStep was really popular with several large banks for their internal applications.

Good question, but the fact that you don't see a lot of programs made with a particular framework doesn't mean it's not widely used. 80% of all software (just a guess, maybe it's even more) that is written is custom built software for a specific customer or purpose.