Talk:OpenStep

Untitled

Erm, I'm sorry, but I really feel that the implementation specific aspects of OpenStep should be put to it's own page. After all, OPENSTEP==operating system. OpenStep == API... Would there be such an objection to me re-forkinig OpenStep? After all, I have seriously expanded the content under OPENSTEP, and intend to put a screenshot up later. ... Dysprosia 12:30 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Gee, forget about it then. Dysprosia 04:01 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't see this page until now. The problem I have with forking the article is that there is exactly one implementation that saw real use. Since the Sun version occupies exactly one paragraph, it seems that any forking is pointless, it's not like there's any need for an "OpenStep Solaris" article, and the differences between the OS and the API can be described, as you have done, in a single sentance.

In fact I think as it stands the article could use a little more re-arranging. The Solaris port should have it's own section I think, and the intro could be re-merged. That is, the intro would mention the Solaris and NeXT versions, but would concentrate solely on the API and leave full descriptions to later in the article (as it is now to a large degree).

Well, the real problem I have is that implementation specific stuff is under OpenStep, which is really misleading, and should be pointed out clearer. Putting the sentence in for me was a kind of compromise, but I'm still uneasy. Call me a pedant :)

But what about NeXT's OPENSTEP? This is the most important NeXT OS they created, and deserves special treatment just as well as the Sol port..

Dysprosia 12:27 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I agree, but I'm a little confused what to do about it. Most of my articles have a short intro (got that here), then a history section, then a description. I this case I can't really do much of a description of the Solaris port because I've never seen it.

About titling? I thought about moving to OpenStep and OPENSTEP, but understandably that's a little cumbersome. Or maybe moving to Openstep, which is a kind of case-in-the-middle...I have no other ideas so far, but I'll think about it...

About the Sol port, I've seen screenshots of it hither and thither, it looks like a weird cross between OPEN LOOK with the NeXT dock (but with the Sun logo) and with NeXTSTEP style windows. However I don't know that much to expand. I might have a look further when I have the time... Dysprosia 12:31 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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What I changed.

autoreleasing an object passed to another object and HOPING it retains it is asking for trouble (unless the other object is explicitly documented as retaining the object passed in). it is only even vaguely logical to do this when you no longer need a reference to it yourself; even then, it is much better (specifically, clearer) to release it directly.

(I'm not talking about the return value of an accessor or factory method. the previous version implied that you would do this when passing an object to a method on another object, and that's what I'm talking about here.)

Mac-arena the Bored Zo 14:04, 2005 Jan 1 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:OPENSTEP Desktop.jpg

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Didn't NeWS development precede both X and OpenStep or OPENSTEP?

> In the early era of the Sun Microsystems history, Sun machines had been programmed at a relatively low-level making calls directly to the underlying Unix operating system and producing a graphical user interface (GUI) using the X11 system. This led to complex programming even for simple projects. An attempt to address this with an object oriented programming model was made in the mid-1980s with Sun's NeWS windowing system, but the combination of a complex application programming interface (API) and generally poor performance led to little real-world use and the system was eventually abandoned.

I don't remember complaints about NeWS performance, but I do remember so for X. I have no knowledge or opinion about relative programming difficulties. Perhaps the performance issues came after Sun was forced to abandon NeWS by the X cabal ganging up on them?

I have never worked for Sun, but I have for DEC.

Whatever else may have been true of X, it was best case, a hodgepodge. Lee D. Rothstein 19:45, 23 May 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by LDR (talk • contribs)

In the early era of the Sun Microsystems history, Sun machines had been programmed at a relatively low-level making calls directly to the underlying Unix operating system and producing a graphical user interface (GUI) using the X11 system. In the early days of Sun, they produced a GUI using an API the implementation of which called graphic drives to draw on the screen and, as I remember, used a driver in the kernel to allow a process to grab a lock on regions of the screen while it was drawing in one of its windows. That quote from the article needs to be fixed.

NeWS development probably started somewhere around 1984, given that Gosling's LinkedIn page indicates that he joined Sun in 1984 and, apparently, started out working on NeWS. According to the lead of X Window System, X development started in 1984, so I suspect if NeWS development preceded X development, it was only by months. X11, which is what, in practice, is what "X' usually means, came out in 1987, which is definitely post-NeWS.

NeXTSTEP started in 1985 or so, when NeXT was founded. Display PostScript and NeXTSTEP came out after NeWS was first publicly available, I think, but maybe only by a year or two.

For what it's worth, Basile Starynkevich speaks of NeXT as being... not all that fast. When I had a quad-booting Pentium II machine running FreeBSD as the main development platform and Windows NT 4.0 as the "run Quicken" platform (and Debian an Solaris as other platforms for doing multi-platform development), the performance of FreBSD+X11 wasn't too bad, but most of my work tended to be done in a terminal emulator window, so I wasn't exactly putting huge demands on the GUI. I don't think Sun were forced to abandon NeWS; they were forced to support X11 because, for better or worse, it was becoming the de facto standard for window systems on UN*X, hence the X11/NeWS server, but there wan't a ton of NeWS development going on, so they eventually abandoned it.

And sometimes "good enough and commony available" beats "better but uncommon".

(P.S. The "> at the beginning of the line" quoting convention isn't common here; typically, either {{blockquote}} or {{talk quote block}} would be used.) Guy Harris (talk) 22:55, 23 May 2023 (UTC)