WRT InterfaceBuilder/ProjectBuilder: <i>It was like a pricy IDE which they made free for folks</i><p>Certainly was not free at least initially, NeXT workstations cost thousands of dollars (in 1980-1990 dollars) and NEXTSTEP software updates were not free either (I think I paid ~$600 to upgrade from NEXTSTEP 2.1 to 3.something).<p>I guess in the sense that all these tools were included with the system it was still a good deal compared to other alternatives at the time, when dev tools were typically purchased separately from the OS.
Relevant - this 20 year old video with Steve Jobs giving a demo of NeXTSTEP 3. I first saw this after having bought a Mac running OS X 10.2 and was surprised by how the user-facing stuff was still very similar to its roots (maybe not nearly as much now).<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A</a>
Why does the article link have facebook parameters? Is this an attack?<p><pre><code> fb_action_ids:4017015587920
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<i>"Objective-C directly inspired Java and C# and has changed how almost everyone programs, even if they’re not writing for Apple’s machines," said developer Wil Shipley, who got his start writing software for NeXT computers.</i><p>I don't remember much talk of Obective-C when either Java or C# came out... I remember people comparing Java to C and C++, and C# to Java, C, and C++, but not really any mention of Objective-C. I actually remember researching Objective-C when I saw references to it in the Linux Kernel's "make config" and thought it was pretty awesome! but, still, I don't think the author's statement is really that accurate.