On Twitter, I’ve been vocal that I don’t believe Obj-C is going away any time soon. For reference, Apple’s stance on the matter is:
“Objective-C is not going away, both Swift and Objective-C are first class citizens for doing Cocoa and Cocoa Touch development.”
It’s important to note that while there are a lot of community websites stating that Swift is the replacement for Obj-C, that has never been any sort of official position from Apple.
This “There can only be one language” phenomenon also seems entirely unique to the Apple developer community. The Windows .NET environment is up to approximately two dozen supported languages with a common API, and it’s made that community stronger, not weaker. Yet instead of taking advantage of a position where we have two languages, each with their own unique strengths, we’re asking which one should be sent to the chopping block.
But even if it’s just my opinion it’s a good thing to have two languages around, let’s review why realistically Apple probably isn’t going to stop development on either Swift or Obj-C. Continue reading “Obj-C and Swift, not Obj-C vs. Swift”