Mark Eichin wrote: > > > its time, I don't think there are any aspects of NeXTStep that aren't > > available > > in the X environment. In addition, the network transparency of X is not > > (to my > > Early versions of NeXTstep (2.x I guess, whatever ran on Black Cubes :-) > Did in fact have network transparency - and even less access control > than X does. Mostly got used for hacking people, as far as I could > ever tell.
My experience with NeXTs was, first, a semi-vaporware beta demo we were evaluating for use here at Lehigh, and a lab of NeXTStations running, I think, one of the later Motorolla-based versions. I don't recall this being available at either end, but the beta cube was stand-alone, so may have had it. > > NeXTstep did win on a few things: > 1) remote execution of code on the server, for tight feedback loops You mean a kernel-and-frontend kind of relationship, with the kernel on a computeserver? > 2) *device independent graphics* which X does not have! X has > portable device dependency - you get all of the details to figure out > for yourself (mutated a bit - as Don Hopkins put it, "The X rendering > model assumes that all displays are VAX framebuffers on acid.") I don't understand this. How can an OS made to run on only their own computers have had device-independent graphics? But perhaps you mean the Intel versions. Those, as I understand it, only run on a very limited class of intel-based machines, with very specific requirements for the video devices. So, to be device-independent has limited meaning, if your code only works on a limited number of devices. X, on the other hand, may kudge the display handling, but it runs on a vast array of different display devices. > Of course, this indicates nothing about the acceptance or usefulness > of GNUstep... which, if it depends on the use of Objective C the way > NeXTstep did, is probably not going anywhere :-) Although the objective-C was one of the big selling points of NeXTStep. What is the status of either NeXTStep of GNUStep? -- David L. Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Department of Mathematics http://www.lehigh.edu/~dlj0/dlj0.html Lehigh University 14 E. Packer Avenue (610) 758-3759 Bethlehem, PA 18015-3174
