iOS Development-interface Builder's past life

Interface Builder, a software development program for Apple's Mac OS X operating system, was created as part of the Xcode suite in 1988. Its creator, Jean-marie Hullot, claims to be "a passionate photographer with a passion for travel," and this article shares Hullot's passion for technology-the process of creating interface Builder.

because of the potential to move

In 1981, Jean-marie Hullot received his PhD in computer Science from the 11th University in Paris and began the research life of the French National Institute of Information and Automation (INRIA).

Jean-marie Hullot's name does not seem to be familiar to the public, but his design of interface Builder is deeply rooted, creating a software myth.

In the the early 1970s, it was time for object-oriented programming to embark on the stage of history. Many of the birthplace of modern computer technology Xerox PARC (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center) Alan Kay, Dan Ingalls, Ted Kaehler, Adele Goldberg and others, Since 1969, an object-oriented programming language Smalltalk has been developed and officially published in 1980. This is a complete object-oriented programming suite that includes an object-oriented programming language, a programming library, and an application development environment (ADE).

Although the machine was very slow to run, but Smalltalk advanced ideas on the other numerous programming languages (Objective-c, Actor, Java and Ruby) has played a significant role in the development of computer industry has a very far-reaching impact. We will introduce objective-c in the future, the details of Smalltalk and its impact on the objective-c, here first a stroke.

Smalltalk's release in the industry a stone stirred thousands of waves, but also to Jean-marie Hullot young heart brought a great shock. He immediately understood that the advanced productivity represented by object-oriented thought would change the programming process for decades, and he did not hesitate to become an early fan of the object-oriented programming model.

SOS's Help

At that time, Jean-marie Hullot was developed using an earlier Macintosh computer. However, he soon found out that although the Mac user interface was doing well, the development process was too bad. "When the Macintosh was invented, the computer was very different from what it was before, and you need to spend at least 60%~70% time on the code in the user interface section," he said. "Before the Macintosh was invented, the user interface was quite simple, just a string of characters below the command line, and the computer would respond to a line of information. So in that era, developers didn't have to focus on the user interface at all. And as soon as the Mac is released, the many windows and menus that come with it make the whole world different. Although it is simple and convenient for users who use the final product, it is a nightmare for the code worker. Each time they need a window or a menu, they are built from scratch.

The clever hullot began to use his brain to improve the difficulty of writing user programs for Mac. He has developed a program that is a bit like "artboards" in Windows systems today. One side of the toolbar is a large number of reusable objects like a menu, while the other side is the user program interface that programmers want to build. Just drag and drop the tools on the toolbar to the program interface, and the related features like "open", "print", etc., can be added to the user interface. In fact, this program, is the first batch of mouse to drag control into the interface design window to achieve the corresponding function of the business process, is the user interface design software pioneer.

This trans-era invention is called SOS, written in Lisp language "Note: What is we going to called this thing think this is interface Builder, but according to the Nextonian and many other data show that in Steve Before Jobs saw it, the program was called SOS. At that time, Expertelligence developed a dialect called Experlisp, which was written in the language "Note: Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_Builder".

At this point Hullot suddenly realized that his design is actually very powerful, its importance can be compared with smalltalk such an invention--smalltalk let developers taste the object-oriented language of sweetness, and SOS is directly put the object to the developer at hand. With such a drag, Hullot realized that if he was only at the institute, that would only allow more than 10 people to enjoy the results, and if he changed his job and made the tool public, it would be a great boon for the world's code workers.

the source of birth

After a constant effort, Hullot found a good place to sell his invention-the Apple University of Cambridge (Apple University Consortium). This Apple and university cooperation Organization saw Hullot's creation after the response is very good, recommended him to see Jean-louis Gassee. Jean-louis Gassee, a Frenchman, was the director of the Apple Development Institute and, after seeing SOS, thought it was a good thing to persuade him to go to America. After several encouragement and recommendation, plus the United States is not unfamiliar to Hullot, so he bought a ticket to jump on the plane to the United States.

But when Jean-marie Hullot came to Apple headquarters in California, he thought it was not a good place to work-Apple was already a huge business and it was hard to innovate. He finally decided not to stay there, instead of looking for someone who could sell the product in America. After selling around, find the manufacturer of the Lisp interpreter he used to write SOS, the software company Expertelligence, which was just mentioned in Santa Barbara.

In fact, Expertelligence was looking for a partner to sell his own Lisp, and Hullot was looking for a partner to sell his own SOS, both hit it off, and then called NeXT to co-sell their products.

Next at Palo Alto headquarters, the product marketing staff received Jean-marie Hullot and two employees from Expertelligence, who were intimidated by the idea of SOS and called Steve Jobs to see. Jean-marie Hullot like the repetition of the machine and his masterpiece show again. The wily Steve Jobs had a long-time eye for SOS, but he had no interest in Expertelligence's lisp. So he pretended to be in no mood for the demonstration. "Note: There are many translation errors that cite this article, the original said nonplussed, the literal meaning of amazement, but in the United States informal expression, the list is not in the interest of", waved the three people sent away.

But as they walked to the parking lot, Steve Jobs asked his men to chase Hullot back, and when he returned to next headquarters alone, Steve Jobs was waiting for him respectfully.

"I want the program on your computer" "Note: http://rixstep.com/2/0/people/", Steve Jobs said: "When can you start to work for us?" ”

Hullot replied that he was leaving for a holiday the next day.

"Well, I'll call you in two weeks," Steve Jobs said.

"No, Old Joe," Hullot said: "I don't travel to the United States, I can travel around Europe, you call me back in seven weeks." ”

Steve Jobs was a bones, but he understood a simple truth: What was missing in the 21st century--talent! Even if Jean-marie Hullot play the big, this call naturally still want to fight. Steve Jobs's phone was on schedule as Hullot came back from a holiday.

So Sangumaolu-like enthusiasm, the Jean-marie Hullot moved to the next day boarded the plane to the United States. The contract was signed for six months, but in fact he spent 10 years in the next. During next work, he used the objective-c and NeXTSTEP framework to rewrite SOS, named Interface Builder. As a result, Interface Builder becomes one of the next integrated development environment Project Builder Standard Suites.

Advanced and Exploration

Interface Builder, like SOS, provides a toolbox that contains a series of user control objects. The toolkit is not officially dead, but can be arbitrarily extended, for example, if users want to use toolbar like Safari, and this is not officially provided, then download third-party psmtabbar can be achieved, Even web frames such as cappuccino can be designed with Interface Builder. Developers can simply drag controls such as menus and text boxes into the project file to complete the user interface design, saving almost all the code associated with the control placement.

A binding is established when the developer drags the mouse and connects the control's available action (ibaction) with the interface (Iboutlet) of another object. Thus, once the action is fired (for example, the user points the button), the corresponding method in the interface is executed. Therefore, code that is associated with a large number of objects can also be omitted.

With this pattern, Interface builder and cocoa can go farther than the software that appears later in Microsoft Visual Studio or QT Designer--as long as they are objects, Interface Builder can manipulate them, There is no need to be a control of the interface. For example, database data sources, queues, etc., can be connected in interface Builder, so many of the original need for thousands of lines of complex applications (such as to display, modify the enterprise name, department, telephone, address, avatar and other information SQL database user interface program), You can finish it in minutes without a single line of code. Don't believe me? Let Steve Jobs in 1992 do it for You "NOTE: Http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A, 23rd minute ~ 29th minute".

After next was acquired by Apple, Apple built the next-generation operating system on the basis of NeXTSTEP. Objective-c and cocoa are the main frameworks, and interface builder and project builder are reused. In the case of the official toolkit, OBJECTIVE-C/COCOA, Carbon hitoolbox and webobject are supported.

March 27, 2008, Apple released the first iphone SDK, designed Cocoa touch interface, is also the interface Builder. It can be said that Interface builder has been expanding with the development of the company's products continue to expand new.

Jean-marie Hullot entered the Apple when next was acquired. Steve Jobs led him to a small team in France, secretly developing an office software for Mac OS X 10.2. In the past, this magnitude of the program is done by the executive team at Apple's California headquarters. And this time, to show the world how powerful his interface builder was, ical turned out to show complex interface elements (calendars, draggable tasks, a variety of categories) and many features (network sync, Apple Script scripting Control) can be developed in a fairly fast time "note: Http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/10/17/road_to_mac_os_x_leopard_ical_3_0. Html&page=2 ".

Finally, Jean-marie Hullot, who finished the soy sauce at the ical group, was promoted to chief technical officer of Apple software development.

Project Builder was renamed to Xcode, now well-known, at Mac OS X 10.3. Prior to Xcode 3, Interface Builder used a binary file format called NIB format. However, since nib is not readable by the naked eye and is not easy to manage with version management tools, Xcode 3 begins by adding a text file format called Xib, and then outputting the nib format to the project compilation stage. Unlike tools that produce static interface layout code (such as MSVC, Qtdesigner, Delphi, etc.), nib is not translated into the corresponding objective-c code. When the user program executes, the nib file is read in, Unpacked, and awakened "note: Awake, which is loaded nib automatically invokes the Awakefromnib method in the program," so the nib file is dynamically loaded at run time.

For a long time, the Xcode environment and interface Builder are two independent but mutually working programs. In the 2010 release of Xcode 4 preview, Xcode and interface Builder are integrated into a single programming environment. So now, developers can even use the mouse to drag and drop the user interface and the code to complete, so that interface builder's interpretation of user code is more correct than before. It's a lot easier to use than an early separation program.

Of course, a negative effect is that with the integration of integrated development environment to write programs, often will find screen space is not enough, so like me with 11 inch air or 13-inch MacBook Pro people, go out to greet all embarrassed to say that they are doing MAC development.

Next Sky (egg)

In the years that followed, Interface Builder created a myth of application software, the exchange rate calculator in the official tutorials, all the home and professional software of Apple, all done by Interface Builder.

In the turbulent 1989, scientists at CERN, Emilio Pagiola, bought the first next computer in the Institute, which was a novelty at CERN, where scientists came to play, Ordinary youth found inside the Webster's dictionary, and can automatically check user input spelling errors, technical youth found it runs UNIX system, there is a read and write CD-ROM, literary youth is found inside incredibly preloaded Shakespeare complete. But after all, like Emilio Pagiola such a huge amount of money to buy next machine young people, so everyone on the sidelines, will go back to do what.

But Tim Berners-lee and others, he not only onlookers the computer, but also saw Jean-marie hullot design Interface Builder, studied objective-c, found the object-oriented programming paradigm development environment of the highest achievement. This scene let him in the heart of great waves, and finally into the passion of the input, sinks into a line of object-oriented code, YIXIEQIANLI, to the future.

A year later, the world's first HTTP service was run at CERN's next computer, and was released synchronously using the Hypertext editor and browser written by Objective-c and interface Builder. He gave the master-slave architecture A nice name,--world Wide web (WWW).

original link:http://www.programmer.com.cn/9234/

Blog Park Link:http://kb.cnblogs.com/page/114879

iOS Development-interface Builder's past life