Project Builder was an

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source code editor, build automation tools a ...

(IDE) originally developed by

NeXT Next may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Next'' (1990 film), an animated short about William Shakespeare * ''Next'' (2007 film), a sci-fi film starring Nicolas Cage * '' Next: A Primer on Urban Painting'', a 2005 documentary film Lit ...

for version 3 of the

NeXTSTEP NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT Computer in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its range of proprieta ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

by separating out the code editing parts of

Interface Builder Interface Builder is a software development application for Apple Inc., Apple's macOS operating system. It is part of Xcode (formerly Project Builder), the Apple Developer developer's toolset. Interface Builder allows Cocoa (API), Cocoa and Car ...

into its own application. After

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

purchased NeXT and turned NeXTSTEP into the

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

operating system, the NeXTSTEP version of Project Builder became ProjectBuilderWO (maintained only for

WebObjects WebObjects was a Java web application server and a server-based web application framework originally developed by NeXT Software, Inc. WebObject's hallmark features are its object-orientation, database connectivity, and prototyping tools. Ap ...

development), and they created a new Project Builder from scratch for

software development Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invol ...

with the first version being introduced with Developer Preview 4 of Mac OS X. This version of Project Builder, informally dubbed PBX. was distributed with the first few versions of Mac OS X but with the release of

Mac OS X v10.3 Mac OS X Panther (version 10.3) is the fourth major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It followed Mac OS X Jaguar and preceded Mac OS X Tiger. It was released on October 24, 2003. System requirements Panther's sy ...

it was redesigned, reintegrated with Interface Builder and rebranded as

Xcode Xcode is Apple's integrated development environment (IDE) for macOS, used to develop software for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS. It was initially released in late 2003; the latest stable release is version 14.2, released on December 13, ...

GNUstep GNUstep is a free software implementation of the Cocoa (formerly OpenStep) Objective-C frameworks, widget toolkit, and application development tools for Unix-like operating systems and Microsoft Windows. It is part of the GNU Project. GNUstep ...

's ProjectCenter IDE is a rough workalike of the original NextStep design; additional functionality is provided by ProjectManager, a 3rd-party GNUstep IDE meant for greater usability.

References

{{Mac-stub MacOS NeXT