I recently got back into Objective-C (first did in 2002) doing some (for hire) framework work on an app that was built in it originally. And it's very refreshing! I've done a lot of C in between then and now, and I almost have to keep reminding myself that it's C under the hood, really.
In a PDF no less. I for one do not miss C (or Objective-C for a long time) at all. I built my first commercial app in C starting in the mid 1985 (Mac). That's how much of an antique this language is.
What a legacy. Objective-C feels like a fun toy you can play with, it really does make cool things quite easy that are really hard in most other languages, like the iOS animation system.
I’ve only been into it since ~2005 (Tiger) when Cocoa itself was quite mature, but Objective-C has gone through a great transformation over that time.
There used to be so much boilerplate in declaring and defining properties and keeping track of memory, and all that is gone now. With clang, compilation is fast and errors are descriptive.
The language has taken an interesting spot because while it’s a compiled language and interops easily with C and C++, using it actually feels more similar to C# or Ruby.
I've been doing a lot of Objective-C coding the past few months, and have found it surprisingly pleasant, once I got used to the syntax. Maybe I had low usability expectations for a language based on C. :-)
Objective-C is a neat little language. Don't get me wrong - I would never go back to it, largely because of runtime errors due to duck-typing - but there were definitely things to like about it.
The best part was the perfect C/C++ interop. When I was working on iOS apps in Objective C, I found myself writing a lot of pure functional code using C and it was pretty neat to be able to integrate that with the OO stuff from Obj C so easily and with a clear dividing line.
I bought a C compiler at my job in 1984 because I thought it was the future, then spent nearly a decade writing MacOS apps in C. I even added object extensions to it (for our use) in 1989 because C++ was not an option yet.
I worked with Objective-C in the late 90s and again in the 2010s, which is basically C with funky object stuff.
I don't miss it at all. C is very low level and so easy to write bad code in if you don't have solid discipline, the language doesn't help at all, which was not really a design decision back then. The first C compiler we used didn't even support prototypes.
I like the way Objective-C made me "think different" compared to more straight C-syntax style languages like Java, PHP or even superficially JavaScript (ironically none of them actually had the C support level Objective-C had!). The quirky syntax, longDescriptiveMethodNames:andProperties: and the relatively flexible type system and run-time capabilities, a strange throwback to the 80's of a different fork from C.
It still makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside seeing it or doodling around with it.
But building applications outside of the ones that have heavy C(++) interop or do really weird stuff run-time I really don't miss working with it and moved almost completely to Swift's "it compiles, it works" capabilities.
I just skimmed an article about that. That's quite nice.
FWIW: One of the things I really appreciated in Objective C was that I could use real C when working with a C library. It wasn't something I did often, though. But, IMO, it's definitely something that someone who wants to do low-level Mac programming should learn. Sometimes it's just easier to work with a library in C.
The really nice thing about Objective-C, of course, is that you can just dip in and out of plain C as the mood takes you (e.g. where speed matters, or perhaps where you're just doing numerical stuff and C is less verbose). I've come to C via Objective-C, and (like many other commenters here) have found it incredibly satisfying.
I think even today Objective-C has some unique benefits for me. It's more low-level and more hackable. And I think some older APIs are not even available in Swift.
Of course, the pressure to rewrite would grow with every year as Apple continues deprioritizing Objective-C, but that's a problem for future me. :)
My timeline and experience is similar. Also, I started web development with Perl back in the 90s before moving onto Java prior to Objective C. When I started doing Objective C, it felt analogous to Perl 5 in some ways -- an OO language that let you peel back the covers to hack the internals when needed, mature frameworks, and an impressive community of knowledgeable graybeards. And the syntax, while powerful, is often accused of having a bit too much punctuation. :-)
Now there are many more Objective C developers, which has also led to rapid improvements in the language and a blossoming of third party frameworks.
I learned to program in Objective C, it was fun. Spent many hours digging behind the scenes, but the only fun fact I remember is that it’s a strict superset of C, so any C program is a valid Objective C program. Always found this fascinating.
Are people still using it today? I thought Swift took over.
reply