6 ms·

Having written ObjC since 2009 or so, honestly it's a fine language, and although I wrote a fair bit in Swift, I don't really see it as a significant improvemen

• sneakymichael 3y ago
  Oof, hard disagree. I absolutely hated writing Objective-C for years– I felt like I had to write unnecessary 'glue' with header files, handling of 'nil' was always jarring, and square brackets at the start and end of every call felt horrendous, to me at least. I relished the day Swift was announced, and have been using it ever since.
  • Dig1t 3y ago
    I love the square brackets. I find them aesthetically pleasing for some reason.
    • Apocryphon 3y ago
      With Xcode or any modern IDE the autocomplete "snap" of square brackets closing is a very satisfying code feel.
  • lapcat 3y ago
    > I felt like I had to write unnecessary 'glue' with header files Headers are a feature, not a bug. They're the API. They help document the API and also keep it separate from the implementation.
    • glhaynes 3y ago
      Objective-C programmers say this, but I note that I've never once heard a Swift developer complain that it's too hard to discover API interface or keep things non-`public`.
      • jshier 3y ago
        Only access control I wish Swift had is typeprivate so I could hide private things but make them available for subclasses (or perhaps protocol conformers). Unfortunately Apple has only added a package level so far, which seems fairly useless (you're either too big for it to be useful or too small to need it). Obj-C didn't really have ACLs at all, you just hid stuff in interfaces. Once found, those interfaces were no protection at all.
      • ninkendo 3y ago
        > never once heard a Swift developer complain that it's too hard to discover API interface Xcode presents the equivalent of a “header” when you follow a symbol to a framework you don’t have the source for… it’s a swift file full of definitions only and no implementations. The compiler emits this for you automatically as a .swiftinterface file > or keep things non-`public` I definitely am a swift developer that would complain about this. It’s way too easy to be cavalier about using the “public” keyword and making things part of the public API when they probably shouldn’t be. It’s like engineers have muscle memory from Java and just type “public class” without really questioning why first.
        • lapcat 3y ago
          > The compiler emits this for you automatically as a .swiftinterface file It's so incredibly slow, though, which is frustrating. It would be ok if only this were as instantaneous as checking a header file. Ironically, almost everything about "Swift" is slower than Objective-C.
      • ultrarunner 3y ago
        Everyone's brain is probably different, but when I first started writing swift I definitely missed header files. When I switch back from a c project I miss them again.
      • pasc1878 3y ago
        IDEs have improved so integration of Swift and searching is easy. Objective-C now could do without headers but I used it 25 years ago and having headers made life easier.
    • myfavoritedog 3y ago
      Any time a language forces you to create boilerplate that could be autogenerated by your toolchain, it's not a feature.
    • newZWhoDis 3y ago
      You don’t need “the API” in another file. Headers are such an idiotic design, over-abstraction harms locality of reasoning.
      • MBCook 3y ago
        They made a TON of sense when memory was very limited. Why parse out a whole C file when you can get the only bits that matter for compiling your file from a 30 line header?
        • pjmlp 3y ago
          Except languages with modules already existed, in systems even more constrained memory predating C's invention.
    • turdprincess 3y ago
      Swift allows you to program using “headers” - just have a protocol and an implementation, even in separate files if you want. This is a good pattern for some cases, like the public members of a package. However, I love that I don’t need to do this for every class I write. And if you do use this approach, at least swift will emit a compile error if your protocol and implementation signatures don’t match. ObjC will happily compile if your header is missing an implementation and crash at runtime.
    • sbjs 3y ago
      TypeScript is no headache for me and has no header files.
  • kevinsync 3y ago
    Agree -- my experience with Swift is that it's far more readable and closer to my personal aesthetics than Obj-C, but I actually struggled a lot figuring out how to write things the way that felt intuitive to me (ex. maintaining an observable global state + config that you can access from anywhere, easy declaration of and access to arbitrary/deeply-nested associative array keys, JSON handling, declare-once-use-anywhere icons and colors, that kind of stuff). Once I had all the convenience guts in place, writing actual functionality has been a delight though (outside of the overly-verbose let/guard and type casting) That said, I'm pretty sure I'm also probably just hard headed and doing it wrong, and could've learned the accepted patterns/methodologies lol
  • randomdata 3y ago
    I always thought the square brackets were clever. Like wrapping a letter in an envelope – which is a great metaphor for the message sending the syntax denotes.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • jwells89 3y ago
    In the whole I don’t mind Objective-C, but when I have to write it these days I definitely get annoyed by having to navigate and maintain header files. It’s more extra overhead than one might realize. My other complaint with it compared to Swift is how one needs to pull in a bunch of utility libraries to do many things that come stock with Swift.
  • vor_ 3y ago
    I find modern Swift to be increasingly ugly and difficult to read. Reading classic Objective-C code is refreshing.
• jhatemyjob 3y ago
  I've had a similar experience, and generally agree with what you're saying. But I am glad Swift was created. All the plebs gravitate towards that language, so Objective-C remains unpolluted. I shudder to think how Objective-C would have deteriorated without Steve around.
  • wahnfrieden 3y ago
    ObjC is often no longer an option for building on new platform functionality
    • jhatemyjob 3y ago
      Can always use a shim
      • MBCook 3y ago
        Yeah but that’s a losing battle. As we go forward you’re going to have to shim out more and more of the new APIs that you need to use. Possibly in ways that are very inconvenient/hard to use in Obj-C.
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
        • jhatemyjob 3y ago
          It's been 10 years and I haven't had any issues. Maybe in another 10 years this will be enough of a problem to switch, but by that point I'll be retired
    • pjmlp 3y ago
      Metal is a counterexample of that.
      • saagarjha 3y ago
        Metal is not a new framework
• happytoexplain 3y ago
  I agree that ObjC is nice, and proven ObjC codebases probably don't benefit enormously from being re-written in Swift, but that has little to do with how much better Swift is (and it is much better, IMO).
  • randomdata 3y ago
    Swift is an improvement over C for the problem domain. Something akin to Swift as a modern C replacement with keeping of the 'Objective' bits of Objective-C layered on top of it would have made for the ultimate language, though.
    • MBCook 3y ago
      I don’t know how doable that would be. Objective-C does just about everything it can to make sure you can mess with it at runtime and confuse the ever living hell out of any type checker that wants to be strict. And the additional strictness is one of my favorite parts of Swift.
      • randomdata 3y ago
        In theory, you are only reaching for the 'Objective' parts of Objective-C when your code actually benefits from being object oriented (in the Kay sense). Otherwise you can stick to pure C. Of course, C has a lot of ugly traps which makes it less than ideal for this domain. This hypothetical subset language addresses those issues. While, again, you would only reach for the 'Objective' parts when your code benefits from being object oriented. It is true that the inherit dynamism of message passing makes static analysis impossible to cover all cases, but as with all things in life there are tradeoffs. You lose the nice aspects of object oriented systems if you do not allow for that, and OO is particularly well suited to UI code. Of course, Swift abandoned the object oriented model completely. Which is fine. But Objective-C showed that you can have your cake an eat it too, offering OO where appropriate, and a non-OO language for everything else. Objective-C's downfall was really just in that C didn't age well – which, among other things, I am sure contributed to seeing the use of the 'Objective' bits where they weren't really appropriate.
• mpalczewski 3y ago
  I’m in a similar boat. Header files typically led to faster compile times. OCMock worked like magic. Where both languages are poor is how large the binaries they produce are.
• koito17 3y ago
  Yup, Objective-C's object system was really flexible and powerful to use. Dynamic mixins, swizzling, etc. were all useful tools for me. Having messages as first-class citizens was probably the most important part to me. It helps make the object system expressive enough that I don't remember writing much design patterns ;) But seriously though, CLOS and Smalltalk-style OOP is probably the only flavor of OOP I really enjoy to use, and Objective-C gets you way closer to that than C++ and Java do. (e.g. the way KVO is implemented relies on "isa-swizzling", or dynamically changing classes at runtime)
  • sbjs 3y ago
    It's a false dichotomy to dislike OOP or prefer it. It's like saying I prefer hammers over screwdrivers. Just learn how the tools you have should be used and use them well. The only app I'm currently maintaining and proud of[1] makes tons of use of "traditional" OOP. It uses lambdas and FP when necessary. I think it makes absolutely no use of JavaScript's dynamic features. I'm fairly sure this code would port easily to ObjC. After 15-20 years, you just get bored of doing things in novel or "pure" ways, and do the bare minimum needed to get the job done that's in front of you. [1] https://github.com/sdegutis/immaculatalibrary.com https://github.com/sdegutis/immaculatalibrary.com
    • koito17 3y ago
      I am not sure if you understood my post. I am in no way saying "OOP is bad in general" or even "OOP is good in general". What I am saying is "I strongly prefer Objective-C's object system over that of other languages." Then I provided examples of other object systems I liked, and how Objective-C feels close enough to them that I don't miss them when writing Objective-C. Maybe saying "flavor of OOP" was too vague, but I am talking about implementations of object systems, not the (ill-defined) notion of OOP. Using your analogy with hammers and screwdrivers, my post is less "I prefer screwdrivers over hammers" and more "I prefer screwdrivers with bit holders over screwdrivers without bit holders"
      • balder1991 3y ago
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• woadwarrior01 3y ago
  Message passing goodness and flexibility (almost!) of Smalltalk, coupled with C for all things low level and perf related. It's a great language! I've switched to Swift for all things Apple these days, but I still miss coding in ObjC.
• MBCook 3y ago
  I really like Obj-C, but I much prefer Swift. It’s less verbose (even if I’m not a square bracket hater. It has some really nice new abilities like async (way easier/cleaner than callbacks in many situations) and now actors. But honestly 90% of it is true type safety. The type system is so much more powerful and expressive compared to Obj-C. There is only one downside, and it’s real. Compiling Obj-C was instantaneous. Swift is MUCH slower, which also slows down error messages and hints. And the fancy type stuff can even timeout the compiler. Combined with some Xcode issues (stale info anybody?) and it can be a pain. But I’m happy we have Swift.
• pjmlp 3y ago
  Sure if one loves typing []@ all over the place, and I know Objective-C since NeXTSTEP days.