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Ask HN: Is Objective-C Now Dead?

12 points by tronium 12y ago

With the advent of Swift, will Apple quit developing Objective-C and faze it out all together over the next few years? Or will it be split off somehow and given further development?

omarforgotpwd 12y ago
The runtime is the the same, so there is no immediate need for it to die, but it will die slowly. Kids may not remember this but you used to be able to access the Cocoa frameworks with Java...
chrisBob 12y ago
I think it will take a while. Right now I can StackOverflow my entire project, and it will be a little while before I can do that with Swift. Seriously though, a lot of developers will try and keep it around as long as possible because of existing codebases. I bet that even includes developers at Apple.
- xauronx 12y ago
  As an iOS developer with several apps in the store and maintaining an enterprise app, I have no interest in Swift. The syntax seems like a step backwards; people complain about javascript constantly, and yet this is like a javascript mask on top of objective-c. Perhaps when it gains some popularity and people figure out what it's good for, and if it's sticking around, I'll learn it. For now I'll stick with objective-c, especially since it took like 3 years to become proficient with it.
  - eyuelt 12y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know many people that complain about the syntax of JS. Usually the complaints are about the many poor design decisions (due, no doubt, to the fact that the language was designed in only 10 days). So I don't think there's anything wrong having a syntax that looks similar to JS. Also, though I haven't actually looked very much into Swift yet, from what I've seen, I disagree that Swift is just a syntactical mask on top of Obj-C. It looks to me to be following a similar approach to Rust and Go, in that it combines features of many different languages, object oriented and functional alike.
joshdance 12y ago
No. Languages take a while to die. C is still around. There are millions of apps written in Obj-C. It will take a while for Swift to get to that level of popularity.
- professorTuring 12y ago
  "No. Languages take a while to die. C is still around." That is unfortunate. You can't compare a language supported by mostly one company as Objective-C against one of the most important languages around. C is widely used and a not dead, not even wounded language. Thousand of companies use it every day in core systems, embedded systems... I am really wondering why you have suggested C being dead or on his way to die...

12 points by tronium 12y ago

With the advent of Swift, will Apple quit developing Objective-C and faze it out all together over the next few years? Or will it be split off somehow and given further development?

omarforgotpwd 12y ago

The runtime is the the same, so there is no immediate need for it to die, but it will die slowly. Kids may not remember this but you used to be able to access the Cocoa frameworks with Java...

chrisBob 12y ago

I think it will take a while. Right now I can StackOverflow my entire project, and it will be a little while before I can do that with Swift. Seriously though, a lot of developers will try and keep it around as long as possible because of existing codebases. I bet that even includes developers at Apple.

xauronx 12y ago
As an iOS developer with several apps in the store and maintaining an enterprise app, I have no interest in Swift. The syntax seems like a step backwards; people complain about javascript constantly, and yet this is like a javascript mask on top of objective-c. Perhaps when it gains some popularity and people figure out what it's good for, and if it's sticking around, I'll learn it. For now I'll stick with objective-c, especially since it took like 3 years to become proficient with it.
- eyuelt 12y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know many people that complain about the syntax of JS. Usually the complaints are about the many poor design decisions (due, no doubt, to the fact that the language was designed in only 10 days). So I don't think there's anything wrong having a syntax that looks similar to JS. Also, though I haven't actually looked very much into Swift yet, from what I've seen, I disagree that Swift is just a syntactical mask on top of Obj-C. It looks to me to be following a similar approach to Rust and Go, in that it combines features of many different languages, object oriented and functional alike.

joshdance 12y ago

No. Languages take a while to die. C is still around. There are millions of apps written in Obj-C. It will take a while for Swift to get to that level of popularity.

professorTuring 12y ago
"No. Languages take a while to die. C is still around." That is unfortunate. You can't compare a language supported by mostly one company as Objective-C against one of the most important languages around. C is widely used and a not dead, not even wounded language. Thousand of companies use it every day in core systems, embedded systems... I am really wondering why you have suggested C being dead or on his way to die...