NeXT drivers were in Objective-C.

coldtea · on Sept 28, 2020

Yes, 30 years ago.

Those went away along with DriverKit (and the performance issues for drivers due to Obj-C), when Apple created OS X.

Though DriverKit has been now re-used as a name, it's C++.

pjmlp · on Sept 28, 2020

And you will find plenty of Apple folks at WWDC that resent that decision and would gladly have it back in Objective-C.

As for performance issues, that is the same talk about C devs regarding using C++ on kernel space, go figure.

> Metal is written in Objective-C, is based on Foundation, and makes use of Grand Central Dispatch to synchronize between the CPU and GPU.

> Shading Language: C++14, Runtime/API: Objective-C

coldtea · on Sept 28, 2020

>And you will find plenty of Apple folks at WWDC that resent that decision and would gladly have it back in Objective-C.

I'm sure you can find 10 of such folks. I doubt you can find 50.

pjmlp · on Sept 28, 2020

Those 10 are most likely former NeXTSTEP developers that actually know what they are talking about.

coldtea · on Sept 28, 2020

...for the time...

pjmlp · on Sept 28, 2020

Ask C engineers about DriverKit, Treble drivers, UDMF, mbed, GenodeOS and they will answer exactly the same way about C++.