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."

The magic 10?

[Just Some Guy]

The magic 10 appears in GNUstep's current 1.10.x release

I'm skeptical, but I guess that's possible.

and in Apple's Mac OS X 'Cocoa' release.

Um, sure. Last year I opened an app that ran in MacOS 9, named in homage to OpenStep's ninth birthday and the fact that OS X would finish making it completely obsolete. Apple must've been smoking crack when they released System 7 to honor OpenStep's minus-third birthday.

Sounds great!!

[Qwavel]

Except for that big about the hurdles getting it to work on Windows. You will forgive me for suggesting that how well it works on Windows, where 95% of users are, is really important.

Also, since you are talking about GNUstep as one of the creators of this, I assume this is open source?

And finally, is is language agnostic? I personally would want to use C++.

Yes, I did not RTFA. Sorry.

Re:Call me stupid, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

You should hire yourself out for Cocoa developer parties.

Throw your empty beer cans at the idiot!

Re:What's NeXT?

[CodeWanker]

And there's another advantage: job security. If you can port an existing mission critical system to this or develop a new on with this, you've got a real hostage :)

Re:Next

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never wondered this.

Get a mouse wheel.

No gnuSTEP link in the writeup?

[RdsArts]

Why isn't there a link to the GNUstep [gnustep.org] website in the writeup? You'd think they could link to the GNUstep [gnustep.org] website in a story that talks about GNUstep [gnustep.org]. What's with that?

Seriously, next time there's a story that has GNUstep [gnustep.org] in the writeup, they should probably link the text "GNUstep [gnustep.org]" to the GNUstep [gnustep.org] website, which is (of course) www.GNUstep [gnustep.org].org.

Re:Call me stupid, but....

[Lars T.]

Nothing like posting a web page as proof - that debunks your little story.

With these test shots out of the way, we started to think about burning the cube itself. When I had called NeXT to find out what kind of paint they had used to paint the cube, one of the people I had spoken with told me

that the cube was made out of "magnesium alloy which is specially designed to be difficult to ignite." These words came back to me as I stood in front of the burn chamber at Livermore. What if we couldn't get the cube to ignite? The idea stood out in my mind like a sore thumb.

[...]

We put the rear panel into the burn chamber. The panel is a square piece of metal, 14'' on each side, and roughly half an inch thick. We stood it on end with a pair of bricks. Then we hit it with the MAP gas tource.

Nothing happened.

We kept the torch focused on the rear panel. Slowly it heated up in the spot where the flame lapped. Soon the metal started to melt. Then it puffed up with a white, caky ash.

"What's going on?" somebody asked.

We kept the flame on the spot. After another minute, we saw that same telltale white spark. "It's caught!" somebody said. The person holding the torch backed away.

The flame sputtered for a few seconds, then it went out. Something was clearly wrong.

We tried again with the MAP gas torch, with similar results. "We have problems like this all of the time," Kirk said, trying to reassure me. "Sometimes its really hard to get things burning." He then walked over to a storage shed and wheeled back an oxygen-acetylene torch. "This should set it on fire," he said with a gleam in his eyes.

The acetylene torch bruned a lot brighter than the MAP gas, but the results were similar. The back panel glowed red, burned white, sputtered a little, then went, leaving a caky white residue --- and a hole.

"This is so NeXT," I told Sally. "Everything works great in the tests, then when you try to make it work for real, in the field, nothing works. They build a computer out of magnesium, and it doesn't even burn!"