Four dominant themes in the discussion
| # | Theme | Representative quotes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Objective‑C is still the preferred language for macOS/iOS | “I never hopped on the Swift train because I saw it as an inferior language to Objective‑C.” – apple4ever “I still write in Objective‑C! I never hopped on the Swift train because I saw it as an inferior language to Objective‑C.” – apple4ever |
| 2 | Swift is praised for safety but criticized for growing complexity | “Swift seems overly complex so use C++ instead.” – umpalumpaaa “The Swift way is safer, but I don’t like it much either.” – zadikian “I feel like Swift went too hard in the static direction which makes a lot of things harder than they should be.” – andrekandre |
| 3 | Cross‑platform and interop solutions (ObjFW, GNUstep, ObjC++) | “ObjFW is a replacement for Foundation, not AppKit, so if it is a GUI app you still have a lot of work to do.” – steeleduncan “My main complaint with GNUstep is the licensing.” – rweichler “ObjC++ was used for some hall‑of‑fame OS X apps, e.g. TextMate.” – frou_dh |
| 4 | The Objective‑C runtime is a powerful, low‑level glue for UI and bridging | “The Objective‑C runtime is amazing.” – LoganDark “You can identify the slow parts of your app and just implement them in C, inline with the rest of your code.” – favorited “The Objective‑C runtime is a direct superset of C, so you can call into a C API or otherwise include a C function if that’s the easiest way to call into a C API.” – gwbas1c |
These four threads capture the bulk of the conversation: a strong nostalgia for Objective‑C, a mixed view of Swift’s safety vs. its bloat, the practicalities of cross‑platform frameworks and ObjC++ usage, and the enduring value of the Objective‑C runtime for UI and interop.