Objective-j? The startup presented a web version of Apple Keynote

Blogger Drew Nelson (Dru Nelson) writes about the 280 North startup and its web application 280Slides .

If it were just a web-based analogue of PowerPoint or Keynote, the news would not have made big waves. But it became much more interesting when Drew looked under the hood and saw ...


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  objj_import ("main.j", YES); 

The main.j source was even more interesting:

  //
 // main.j
 // Editor
 //
 // Created by Francisco Tolmasky.
 // Copyright 2005 - 2008, 280 North, Inc.  All rights reserved.
 //

 import <Foundation / Foundation.j>
 import <AppKit / AppKit.j>

 import "Document.j"
 import "DocumentController.j"

 [DocumentController sharedDocumentController];

 function main (args, namedArgs)
 {
     CPApplicationMain (args, namedArgs);
 }
 ... 

Anyone who has ever seen Objective – C can easily see the similarity (if not the identity) of the above code and what can typically be found in a Cocoa application.

Reddit was filled with comments that the company's founders were formerly Apple employees (from the iPhone and iTunes teams), and 280Slides is an excellent testing ground for WebKit nightlies (and, presumably, for SquirrelFish ).

280 North wrote a translator with Objective-C (or, rather, Objective-J) in JavaScript. Most of the translation is done at run time, no (or almost no ) precompilation! The library uses both Canvas and SVG and (where necessary) Flash - and the result is simply amazing.

More on the same topic: TechCrunch and Chris Heilmann .