NeXT Research and Development "Alive and Well"

kylec · on July 30, 2011

In 1993 it was, anyway

michaelf · on July 30, 2011

If you google several of the names from the article, you'll find that many of those engineers are still working on NeXT R&D, although under different product names (OS X and iOS). I wonder if any of them ever imagined that average janes and joes would be running NeXT workstations on their cell phones?

aheilbut · on July 30, 2011

The coolest instance of this is that Paul Hegarty taught the Fall 2010 CS193p class.

pohl · on July 30, 2011

Instead of taking a brute-force approach to software development, the R&D team concentrates on putting enabling technologies in place that can be leveraged by others.

and

If you want a sneak peak at NEXTSTEP's future, says Hullot, you have only to look a little closer at the present version.

This remains true to this day.

newman314 · on July 30, 2011

NeXTStep had this concept of a "Shelf" that I have not seen replicated since.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelf_(computing)

It sure would be nice to have such an option in the Finder.

frou_dh · on July 30, 2011

IIRC, "PathFinder" for OS X has that feature.

sp332 · on July 30, 2011

@access_denied: I hate to break it to you, but your account is dead. It has been dead for 535 days.

A-K · on July 30, 2011

I wonder if any NeXT projects, after so many years, still exist in some pre-release form within Apple R&D.

marbletiles · on July 30, 2011

I wonder if YellowBox is still around. I used it last night to compile a little Mac app for Windows XP, and it still makes me chuckle when it works.

apgwoz · on July 30, 2011

> Official word is, that the YellowBox for Windows is gone now, though, and AppleComputer revoked any license to develop third-party applications for it.

http://www.cocoadev.com/index.pl?YellowBox

(as of 2010 -- if you believe the last edited)