One of the things that amazes me about NeXTstep is the fact that it brought together many technologies developed by Xerox PARC. Unlike the original Mac, where the dominant PARC influence was its GUI, NeXTstep had other PARC-inspired technologies, such as Ethernet networking, Display PostScript (while PostScript is an Adobe product, the creators of PostScript were ex-PARC researchers who worked on a similar page description language called InterPress), and dynamic, late-binding object oriented programming, albeit in the form of Objective-C rather than Smalltalk. These technologies created a solid foundation that is still relevant today; macOS more or less is still influenced by NeXT despite gradual changes.
Of course, there’s also the Unix foundation of NeXTstep, which importance cannot be understated, especially during the rise of the Unix workstation in the 1980s and the 1990s. This gave NeXTstep (and later Mac OS X) a user base who could take advantage of PARC-inspired environments while at the same time being able to take advantage of the vast Unix ecosystem.
Yes, the Xerox PARC and Unix philosophies are different and sometimes contradictory. However, it’s impressive how NeXT was able to bridge these worlds; the execution was great, and once again macOS serves as a living legacy.
As an aside, personally I’m curious about an alternative timeline where NeXT decided to go all-in on Smalltalk, building a “Smalltalk OS” with no Unix foundation, similar in philosophy to the Lisp machines of the era. There was certainly research going on in the 1980s to improve the speed of Smalltalk; part of this was continued with the development of Self by David Ungar and other researchers. NeXT probably still would’ve had the same market challenges, and the lack of a Unix foundation may have further hurt adoption. But from a purely technical standpoint a polished Smalltalk desktop would be amazing to see and use.
Of course, there’s also the Unix foundation of NeXTstep, which importance cannot be understated, especially during the rise of the Unix workstation in the 1980s and the 1990s. This gave NeXTstep (and later Mac OS X) a user base who could take advantage of PARC-inspired environments while at the same time being able to take advantage of the vast Unix ecosystem.
Yes, the Xerox PARC and Unix philosophies are different and sometimes contradictory. However, it’s impressive how NeXT was able to bridge these worlds; the execution was great, and once again macOS serves as a living legacy.
As an aside, personally I’m curious about an alternative timeline where NeXT decided to go all-in on Smalltalk, building a “Smalltalk OS” with no Unix foundation, similar in philosophy to the Lisp machines of the era. There was certainly research going on in the 1980s to improve the speed of Smalltalk; part of this was continued with the development of Self by David Ungar and other researchers. NeXT probably still would’ve had the same market challenges, and the lack of a Unix foundation may have further hurt adoption. But from a purely technical standpoint a polished Smalltalk desktop would be amazing to see and use.