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Steve Jobs, NeXTSTEP, and early object-oriented programming (2016)

Since 2008, over a hundred billion apps have been downloaded from Apple’s App Store onto users’ iPhones or iPads. However, the technology and tools powering the mobile “app revolution” are not themselves new, but rather have a long history spanning over thirty years, one which connects back to the beginnings of software engineering and object-oriented programming in the late 1960s.

However, the technology and tools powering the mobile “app revolution” are not themselves new, but rather have a long history spanning over thirty years, one which connects back to not only NeXT, the company Steve Jobs started in 1985, but to the beginnings of software engineering and object-oriented programming in the late 1960s. The combination of Objective-C, AppKit, and Interface Builder allowed Steve Jobs to boast that NeXTSTEP could make developers five to ten times more productive—precisely the order of magnitude improvement Brooks had claimed could not be achieved. Moreover, NeXTSTEP had proved so productive for rapid development of “mission-critical” custom applications that Wall Street banks and national security organizations like the CIA were paying thousands of dollars per license for it.

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