Software Development

• NeXT long known for quality of software development tools

• Tools

  • InterfaceBuilder, ProjectBuilder

• APIs

  • Cocoa

    • updated OpenStep

    • fully object-oriented

  • Carbon

    • cleaned-up version of traditional Mac Toolbox API

    • designed for easy transition of Mac apps to native OS X environment

    • shares core API with Cocoa

  • Mac Toolbox

    • traditional Mac API

    • applications run in Classic (Mac OS 9 compatibility environment)

    • while running in Classic, apps don't use multitasking, memory protection, or other advanced features

  • 100% Pure Java

    • Java 2 runtime

  • UNIX

    • POSIX-compliant (pretty much), but not certified

    • gotcha: lack of built-in X Windows for graphical UNIX apps

• Languages

  • Objective-C

    • simple object-oriented superset of C (unlike C++)

    • modeled after Smalltalk

    • all C variants use gcc to compile

  • C, C++

  • Java

  • shell scripting languages: Bourne, C, etc.

  • Perl, Tcl

• Note: Developer tools, including the C compiler, are available to Apple Developer Connection members from Apple's Web site

  • ADC Online membership is free

Send comments to: leonvs@occam.com
Copyright © 1999-2001 Leon Towns-von Stauber. All rights reserved.