Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!uh2
From: UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: An Intuition.device?
Message-ID: <90255.124203UH2@psuvm.psu.edu>
Date: 12 Sep 90 16:42:03 GMT
References: <30021@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <1032@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>
Organization: Penn State University
Lines: 41

In article <1032@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>, U3364521@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au
(Lou Cavallo) says:

>How do NeXT and Windows 3.0 programmers have it easier? (no flames please)

>I read on the net that the NeXT has an easy to use Interface Builder. Perhaps

I don't believe that Windows 3.0 is much easier, but the Interface Builder
seems very nice (but then, I've only read about it 8-).  With IB, you build
an interface like so:  Call up a program almost like a paint program that has
windows, buttons, sliders, string gadgets, and so on as its basic elements.
You create a window for your new application by dragging one from the
palette onto the main NeXT screen.  You add some buttons, and give them
names and so on.   Need a string gadget, fine, where do you want it, and how
big should it be.  Drag.  Resize.  Oops, that buttons in the way, maybe over
here and a little bigger.

When you are finished, IB creates the Obj-C source code (an OO dialect of
C--much more elegant than C++ but more differnet from regular C) that will
generate the interface you just designed.  It has very easy to use hooks into
it for the guts of the application to use.  That is, you write the program
that reacts when a user pushes a button or selcts a string gadget, and
also tell the interface how to respond in return.

Like I say, it looks to be pretty neat.  I read comp.sys.next, and people
there seem to be at least fairly satisfied with it most of the time, and
version 2.0 is about out.

BTW, an academic article in IEEE Software, reviewing the "four generations"
of User Interface Management Systems currently available says something to the
effect of there being few real 4th generation systems, even in the research
labs, but NeXT Step and its Interface Builder at least partially qualify.

Footnote.  While not as widely used as C++ or Smalltalk, Obj-C seems like
a really good way to go, especially since it is sort of the core language of
NeXT.  With some sort of interface layer between NeXTSTeP and Intuition,
I can even imagine NeXT applications porting easily to Amiga 3000.

The Amiga would make a good little sister to NeXT.

                                                  lee