NextSTEP was spawned between the C and C++ phase and has been stuck in a Objective C timewarp. Apple bought Next because Rhapsody was going nowhere fast and they are stuck with the NS api like a millstone.

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However, the NS API appears to be a very productive millstone. I agree that the NS API is a pain for some significant developers (BBedit, Adobe, even Microsoft) but most of them have got on with rewriting their applications. But by learning NS and Objective C, you can develop for the iPhone, some iPods etc as well as OS X.