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Objective-C doesn't have generics either and is/was the blessed API language on your chosen OS. The horror!

anon1385 12y ago
Obj-C is 31 years old. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect new languages/frameworks to have progressed in that time.
- Artemis2 12y ago
  Isn't it normal to expect old languages to evolve too, especially when they are pushed forward by companies as huge as Apple? Look at C++ (the same age as Objective-C): C++11 was approved in 2011.
  - comex 12y ago
    Swift, Apple's days-old intended replacement for Objective-C, does have generics.
    - Artemis2 12y ago
      Isn't it about time? I mean, they don't really have to make a brand new language to add generics.
      - comex 12y ago
        As mentioned elsewhere, Objective-C is mostly dynamically typed, and you can just silently cast id to things, so it doesn't need generics as much as a language like Go, although they certainly could be useful. On the other hand, the dynamic typing makes it slow with generics or not, and if you want to put numbers in collections, you have to go through a very cumbersome boxing process - two of the many things only a new language could resolve.
Alphasite_ 12y ago
And Objective-C isn't really strongly typed either, so you can send anything any message.
- andlabs 12y ago
  FWIW this is specifically why Objective-C has been able to get by without generics for a while. You don't get solid type-checking like you do with generics in other languages (except C++), but that has never really been an issue because the above statement works even with [...] statements (sure, the compiler will warn you, but). The only real issue is that the things you shove into Objective-C containers must themselves be Objective-C types, which means using NSNumber and NSValue everywhere for raw C types. The new Objective-C @literal and @(expression) syntax, however, should make such code cleaner in the future...
matthewmacleod 12y ago
It's also not statically typed - that's one of the things that generics can really help with.
pjmlp 12y ago
Because it is dynamically typed, duh!
rsynnott 12y ago
Surprisingly, people have different expectations between a language from the 80s and a language less than a decade old.

Obj-C is 31 years old. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect new languages/frameworks to have progressed in that time.

Artemis2 12y ago
Isn't it normal to expect old languages to evolve too, especially when they are pushed forward by companies as huge as Apple? Look at C++ (the same age as Objective-C): C++11 was approved in 2011.
- comex 12y ago
  Swift, Apple's days-old intended replacement for Objective-C, does have generics.
  - Artemis2 12y ago
    Isn't it about time? I mean, they don't really have to make a brand new language to add generics.
    - comex 12y ago
      As mentioned elsewhere, Objective-C is mostly dynamically typed, and you can just silently cast id to things, so it doesn't need generics as much as a language like Go, although they certainly could be useful. On the other hand, the dynamic typing makes it slow with generics or not, and if you want to put numbers in collections, you have to go through a very cumbersome boxing process - two of the many things only a new language could resolve.

Alphasite_ 12y ago

And Objective-C isn't really strongly typed either, so you can send anything any message.

andlabs 12y ago
FWIW this is specifically why Objective-C has been able to get by without generics for a while. You don't get solid type-checking like you do with generics in other languages (except C++), but that has never really been an issue because the above statement works even with [...] statements (sure, the compiler will warn you, but). The only real issue is that the things you shove into Objective-C containers must themselves be Objective-C types, which means using NSNumber and NSValue everywhere for raw C types. The new Objective-C @literal and @(expression) syntax, however, should make such code cleaner in the future...

matthewmacleod 12y ago

It's also not statically typed - that's one of the things that generics can really help with.

pjmlp 12y ago

Because it is dynamically typed, duh!

rsynnott 12y ago

Surprisingly, people have different expectations between a language from the 80s and a language less than a decade old.