The objective-C environment: past, present, and future

The Objective-C environment, a growing collection of tools and reusable components (Software-ICs) for large-scale production system-building is discussed. Its goal is to make it possible for its users to build software systems in the way that hardware engineers build theirs, by reusing Software-ICs supplied by a marketplace in generic components rather than by building everything from scratch. The environment is based on conventional technology (C and Unix-style operating systems), which it includes and extends. The extensions presently include a complied and an interpreted implementation of Objective-C (an object-oriented programming language based on C) and several libraries of reusable components (ICpaks).< >