Re: NeXT

[John Eikenberry [MSAI]]

On Tue, 19 Nov 1996, Benedikt Stefansson wrote:

> But what does it entail to port Swarm to NeXT? The NeXT Mach OS used
> Display PostScript, but can anybody fill me in on what the Solaris,HP-UX
> and Windows/NT versions of OpenStep use to drive the GUI? 

I think (though am not sure) that they use adobe's display postscript
system. Display postscript is an integral part of OpenStep (its in the 
specs). Perhaps they use an X front end to the dps engine. This is the
way the GNUstep people are doing it.
 
> A port of Swarm to OpenStep would probably create some incompatabilities
> between the vanilla Unix and the OpenStep versions, but the bonus would
> be that the development tools for Objective-C on OpenStep are second to
> none, and this could potentially make the development of Swarm sims
> accessible to a much larger audience. The downside of course is that
> OpenStep is commercial software. 

I agree completely. OpenStep is by far the best set of development tools
I've seen. As far as their commercial limitations, take a look at GNUstep
(gnu's free implementation of OpenStep) at:

http://www.gnustep.org

Ciao,

John Eikenberry
address@hidden
______________________________________________________________
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order
 will deserve neither and lose both."
                                         --B. Franklin