Isn't it normal to expect old languages to evolve too, especially when they are pushed forward by companies as huge as Apple? Look at C++ (the same age as Objective-C): C++11 was approved in 2011.
No Objective-C was not dead before iOS. A thriving Apple was supporting Objective-C in every way possible, and moving from Carbon to Cocoa.
Objective-C is used to build applications for Apple software. It's not a threat to Java, but that doesn't mean Objective-C is dead. Objective-C will be around for a long time to come. It's a modern language that powers all of Apple's most recent technology. They have no reasons to change, and there are no signs that Apple is on the verge of disappearing into the aether.
Vim is shitty software. I like the UI, but the thing is single threaded and everything runs on the UI thread. There's no hope for async, or an event loop, or even a settimeout like feature. The code is full of globals and trying to add new features to the thing is going to result in inexplicable, unfathomable seg faults. Vim uses shitty regular expressions in the UI thread to do syntax highlighting which is why that's slow for big files and why the syntax highlighting breaks.
So the code matters. There will never be powerful IDE like features as long it's this single threaded thing that only ever does anything as a response to user input. Given the state of the code, changing this does not seem ever possible.
What's the status of Objective C language today? Is it fully supported forever or is it in legacy status waiting for its support to be dropped in the future?
I'm completely convinced you don't know what you're talking about. Your posting contains several inaccuracies.
1) Whether Objective-C would have been "extinct" is quite subjective, but given that it is the power and force behind the mobile revolution which is happening on the iOS devices (iphone, ipad, etc) and all of the Macs out there. I would venture a guess that you're wrong about it being dated.
2) It has recently been updated... Objective-C 2.0 has features such as Garbage Collection and ARC to make memory management easy. If your conceptualization of a "modern" language is C++ or Java, please think again. "Modern" languages are moving towards flexibility and loose typing (like in Ruby, ObjC, etc...) not language such as C++ or Java.
James Gosling was, indeed, quoted once as citing ObjC as the inspiration for Java. Many NeXT engineers, in fact, helped to build Java when they went to Sun.
3) ObjC's use on other platforms is hardly zero, but it is, nonetheless not very popular on other platforms aside from Mac. But this is not, as you seem to suggest, because it isn't any good, but because many developers don't know that it's useful on other platforms because they think it's restricted to Mac.
So, if any of you would like to help make ObjC more useful, feel free to help the GNUstep project. We have much of Cocoa implemented. Help us make it more complete!!!
I wrote my first commercial Objective-C program back in 1988 on msoft DOS -- 22 years ago. I am guessing it would probably be a dead language by now if it had not been for NeXT/Apple.
I haven't said otherwise, just that hadn't Apple not decided to push it, the language would be dead.
This was the reason behind the Cocoa Java support in the early versions, as Apple was not sure if mainstream developers were willing to pick up Objective-C, even with them pushing for it.
objective-c has a particular set of strengths that is well-suited to gui development. if you count its beginnings at next, it has been in use in this environment for over 20 years. there is no way in hell apple would abandon it now.
You aren't wrong. Objective-C is dying. The huge machine that nursed the frail, nearly-forgotten language back to health -- and then pumped it full of steroids and made it a monster -- has been disconnected, and hooked up to Swift, instead.
Apple's bet on Objective-C was the only thing that made it broadly relevant -- but now they have moved on, and Apple is generally the type of company that does the opposite of "support both forever".
I agree that it is dying very slowly, however. You will probably still be able to write OS X apps in Objective-C in 2020, albeit with various caveats.
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