How NextStep can one-up the Mac operating system
BY SIMSON GARFINKEL
Special to the Mercury News
AS users contemplate the prospect of Next Software's NextStep operating system -- or some variant -- becoming the new Macintosh operating system, they have one essential question: What's in it for me?
Quite a bit, depending on users' needs. Keep in mind, though, that as Apple adapts Next's technology to its own systems, it's likely to change or even eliminate some features of today's NextStep.
Here are some of those features:
NextStep is dramatically more reliable than the MacOS. Computers running NextStep can run for months at a time without crashing or having to reboot. And some developers report that they can create applications for NextStep in a fraction of the time that it takes to create applications for other operating systems.
Also, thanks to improved memory management and other technology, NextStep and programs written to run under it should be between two and three times faster when run on the same hardware as MacOS. But Display PostScript, the way that NextStep displays on the computer's screen, is slower than the QuickTime drawing system used by the Macintosh. (On the other hand, Display PostScript displays without flickering on the screen.)
NextStep is visually more attractive than the MacOS, though Windows 95 is pretty attractive as well. A small but real advantage in user ease: NextStep still has better scroll bars -- the ``up'' and ``down'' buttons are right next to each other, so you can scroll up or down without having to keep moving your mouse from one edge of the window to the other.
NextStep's cut-and-paste system is vastly better than in either Windows or the MacOS. If you copy a graphic to the PasteBoard -- the equivalent of the clipboards used by Windows and the Mac -- and then paste it into your word processor, you'll probably paste in an ``Encapsulated PostScript'' image. As a result, it will print much better. And NextStep has something called ``lazy evaluation,'' which means that the image isn't actually put on the PasteBoard until it is needed.
NextStep has ``filter services,'' which is a unified way for third-parties to create graphic and file-format translators. This would open the file-translation market. Individual companies could sell single file translators. Alternatively, a company that makes a word processor could bundle it with a filter service so that any other program that you have can read the file formats of your new word processor.
NextStep has built-in faxing. Any application that can print can fax. This feature is handled much more capably than in the MacOS or Windows 95. Faxes look better, too, because they're generated by PostScript.
The NextStep ``dock'' is pretty nifty. It goes down the side and holds your most frequently-used applications. The icons for the applications are there whether the program is running or not, and are always in the same position. NextStep allows you to ``hide'' applications the way that MacOS does. (Windows 95 doesn't really do this.)
For the graphic-arts community, NextStep has ``Display PostScript,'' which means that artists can preview on their screen exactly the way something will look when it is printed. NextStep's PostScript software can also be used to run a wide variety of printers, whereas the Macintosh today can only work with Apple printers and printers that contain the PostScript language. Nextstep also has a system, known as Pantone, which allows precise matching of colors. Applications can refer to colors by Pantone number, rather than by using the amount of red, green and blue in the color, which means that matched colors stay matched.
NextStep allows users to plug in new features. For example, they can plug in their own spell-checker that will work with any application written for Nextstep.
NextStep has built-in support for internationalization, or making applications multi-lingual. It's relatively easy for software developers to bring out a single application that supports French, German and Spanish in addition to English. The basic NextStep environment comes with all of the applications translated into English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian and Swedish. Users can have language preferences: ``Give me Spanish, if you have it, otherwise give me English.''
Networked NextStep
As an operating system for systems administrators and network managers, NextStep is much more similar to Microsoft's Windows NT than the MacOS. NextStep and Windows NT have configuration files that control the way that the operating system boots and how it behaves.
If Apple just takes NextStep and ``ports'' it to the Mac, the Macintosh could lose much of its fabled ease-of-administration. Running a NextStep-based network is a lot more similar to running a network of machines running Windows NT than to a network of machines running MacOS.
Another difference is the file system. On NextStep, a file's type is determined by its extension -- such as .DOC, .TXT, etc. -- just as with DOS and Windows. On the other hand, it's possible that Apple might want to adopt an industry-standard file system. Although it's handy, the ``resource fork'' in Apple files is nothing but a headache in the networked environment.
Simson L. Garfinkel is a former programmer who worked with Next Software Inc. on a consulting basis. Send him e-mail at simsong@vineyard.net.
Published Sunday, January 5, 1997, in the San Jose Mercury News
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