> Obj-C went with Smalltalk syntax, while the rest of the world went with C++ syntax and ultimately the Java style syntax we know and love today. It's more tha

> Obj-C went with Smalltalk syntax, while the rest of the world went with C++ syntax and ultimately the Java style syntax we know and love today. It's more than just a syntactic difference. Objective-C implements true message passing which is not the same as "method calling". You can send messages to a nil object, or have an object dynamically respond at runtime to a message it didn't declare at compile time etc. Some seem to think the brackets are just some kind of whimsy, but it's important that sending a message is not to be confused with calling a function.