Re: bigger, sexier, more phly debian...
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 dlj0@lehigh.edu dlj0@netaxs.com
Department of Mathematics http://www.lehigh.edu/~dlj0/dlj0.html
Lehigh University
14 E. Packer Avenue (610) 758-3759
Bethlehem, PA 18015-3174
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