I would like to learn Objective-C, mainly because there is an Application that I would like to see on OS X that I can't find, so I feel like I should write it myself.
Objective-C. I've worked with C, C++, and C#. But objective-C seems to fit my thoughts better. I like how it reads. Currently building iOS/Mac apps with it.
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. :-)
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.
Objective-C and the iPhone API. This is probably the first language I learn just in the process of doing something specific (writing apps for iPhone), and not because I really need to learn it for enhance my programming skills. Still it is an interesting language even if designing it today from scratch could lead to something pretty different...
I've been intending to try Objective C for many years now. I like C, I like Smalltalk, and I like Mac OS. Maybe when I finish my degree, but there's no time now.
I really like Objective-C. I had been using mostly Ruby before I started Obj-C (to make a quick iPhone app), and I liked it so much that I ended up going even further and doing about half of my programming in C++. Obj-C was a nice introduction to using a compiled language in real code that did stuff (as opposed to CS homework, which was my only previous C experience). When I wanted to make real stuff (servers), though, Obj-C wouldn't work since it had few libraries and relied heavily (in practice) on Apple's implementation of NS* classes.
If you have programming experience, you should be able to learn 99% of Objective-C in about 5 hours.
I've lately become very addicted to Objective-C, after a few months of hacking apps for iOS .. and I'm finding myself wishing I could use it at my day job (OS developer for safety-critical systems) .. its just such a sweet language, very friendly and easy to use.
Over the years I've learned in the region of 40 programming languages and am fluent in about a dozen. I spent 9 years as a web developer and switched to iOS using ObjC a couple of years ago.
Objective-C is by far my favorite language. I can code up an ObjC solution to a problem far faster than I could with JavaScript, C, C++, C#, Java, Python or anything else I've used. I adore ObjC's meta programming capabilities, its simplicity, its fixes for issues I encountered in C++, the way it gives high-level abstractions if I want them but allows me to drop to low-level C if I need to, and its encouragement of self-documenting code.
More importantly than any of that, I have more fun with Objective-C than any other language.
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.
I've found after learning C I have a much better appreciation for writing resource conscious programs on a computer than I did before when I was first introduced to Java.
It has certainly helped me learn Objective C and C++ a lot quicker.
I'd even go as far as to say for new people to programming and put off by C, Objective C could be a good stepping stone for them.
Maybe I'm weird, but I actually really like Objective-C. My mind likes how the language works. I just wish there was more of a community around it so that it could more easily be used for things other than iOS/Mac development.
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