What is NeXTSTEP Eval Programming Environment?

Eval is a programming environment which brings to ObjC much of the flexibility and immediacy of integrated programming systems often associated with SmallTalk and Lisp. Although Eval feels like an interpreter, it's actually an incremental compiler built on NeXT's ObjC compiler and run-time system. This is version 3.3 of Eval: it represents a considerable enhancement over all previous releases.
 
In addition to functioning as a stand-alone program, Eval provides a service to other programs through the Services menu, making its functionality available to any application which can write ascii to the pasteboard. This allows you to select text in Edit, Mail, NewsGrazer, and so on, and execute that text as ObjC or PostScript.

Eval provides windows, called Code Browsers, which are designed for editing ObjC program text. Text in a Code Browser is automatically classified into one of 7 categories (comment, keyword, method definition, etc.), and each category is displayed with its own user-definable font, size, and color.

In sum, Eval  provides the following  functions:

• Compile, load, execute, and unload  the current selection as ObjC code. 
• Compile and  load the current selection as an ObjC class or classes. 
• Dynamically load from disk any archive (library, i.e. .a file), object module (.o file), or compile and load any ObjC implementation file (.m file).
• Create an interface definition file (.h file) from the current selection.
• Interpret the current selection as PostScript. 
• Edit code in Code Browsers, automatically displaying ObjC reserved words, comments, strings, and so on, using user-definable fonts, sizes, and colors, while displaying an index of all method definitions in a separate scrolling browser.

Eval is freeware, and is distributed in source code form only. You need NeXTSTEP developer not only to build Eval, but to run it is well.

Download NeXTSTEP Eval Programming Environment for Mac

Architecture

68K + PPC (FAT)

Compatibility notes

NeXTSTEP Eval Programming Environment - 3.0

Most likely for Motorola 68k-based machines, but cannot confirm.

NeXTSTEP Eval Programming Environment - 3.3

Most likely could be compatible with Intel x86, SUN SPARC or HP-PA-RISC, but cannot confirm.

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II