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Steve Jobs, NeXTSTEP, and early object-oriented programming (2016)

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107 points wmlive | 1 comments | 12 Nov 24 01:06 UTC | HN request time: 0.264s | source
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itslennysfault ◴[13 Nov 24 19:50 UTC] No.42129253[source]▶
So, this is why the abomination that is Obj-C is/was used for iPhone/Mac apps. I can't overstate how much I hate Obj-C. I'm so sooo happy Swift has pretty much entirely taken over.

Side note... I feel similarly about the Java to Kotlin transition. Sooo much better. Although, I don't hate Java NEARLY as much as Obj-C.

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ramesh31 ◴[13 Nov 24 19:59 UTC] No.42129327[source]▶
To each their own. I'm convinced it's just a visceral reaction to the square bracket syntax. Obj-C remains my favorite language of all time (although I haven't written it in years). Having a high level language that allows you to seamlessly drop into C felt like magic.
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itslennysfault ◴[13 Nov 24 20:47 UTC] No.42129839[source]▶
Interesting, I guess that part was missed on me since I only really ever used it for iPhone apps and never really had a need to use C directly.

Also, you're 100% right. The square brackets are what immediately repulsed me and continued to befuddle me even after years of experience with it. Also, everything just feels "backwards" to me if that makes any sense. Coming from Java/C#/JavaScript everything just seemed unintuitive to me at all times. Also, I think this was heavily compounded by using xCode which (at the time) was incredibly laggy. So, I'd mess up the Obj-C syntax and the IDE wouldn't tell me for what felt like forever. Often I'd make a change and hit "play" before the syntax highlighting caught up and that always felt infuriating.

I last used xCode about 4 years ago and it was still an issue then (even with swift).

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1. neverartful ◴[13 Nov 24 22:55 UTC] No.42131134[source]▶
The square brackets can be a huge impediment when first working on Obj-C (it was to me). I found that after some period of time to acclimate they eventually felt 'normal'.