[saagarjha]

Objective-C is a very simple, clean language–very much unlike its other "object-oriented-C competitor" C++. Unlike C++ it's a 100% superset of C, and it takes its cues from Smalltalk where objects send messages to each other rather than statically call each other's procedures. To support this, there is a very rich runtime that allows all sorts of reflection and metaprogamming atypical in a compiled language.

[microtherion]

Tastes may differ. To me, C++ looks like an organic extension of C syntax, while Objective C looks like an alien graft on top of C.

Same with semantics: In C++ there is a continuum from POD structs to adding non-virtual methods to adding virtual methods. In Objective C there is a gaping chasm between C types and Objective C types, and weirdness occurs when you mix the two (e.g. pass a method taking an (int) to a place expecting a method taking an (NSNumber *)).

Containers (arrays and dictionaries) in Objective C, I find particularly ugly, especially in earlier (pre-2010 or so) versions of Objective C. They can contain only Objective C objects, not C objects, but can wildly mix and match objects of different types (this has been helped by Objective C generics by now). Access to elements is very verbose (this has been helped by syntactic sugar by now).

Just recently, I had to review Objective C code using a multidimensional numeric array. Even in modern syntax, it was no joy to read, and I wept for the senselessly murdered memory and CPU time. But if it had been written in pre-2010 Objective C, I might have lost my will to live for weeks.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

I don't see how you can call ObjC any more of a superset of C than C++.

Object-related syntax in ObjC is completely alien to C. Object-related syntax in C++ (mostly) extends C structure syntax.

Yes, ObjC takes its cues from Smalltalk. C++ does not. And so... ?

[EDIT: ok, so people want to interpret "superset" as meaning "every valid C program is a valid Objective C program too. This is, with very few exceptions, true of C++ as well ]

[armadsen]

Because ObjC is a strict superset of C in the technical sense. That is: every valid C program is also a valid Objective-C program.

Of course idiomatic ObjC is heavily tilted toward the non-C parts of the language (OOP features), but that doesn’t mean it’s not a true superset of C.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

"Yes! C++ is nearly exactly a superset of Standard C95 (C90 and the 1995 Amendment 1). With very few exceptions, every valid C95 program is also a valid C++ program with the same meaning."

https://isocpp.org/wiki/faq/c

[saagarjha]

Objective-C has no exceptions.

[grzm]

Whaddya mean?

   @try {
        // do something that might throw an exception
    }
    @catch (NSException *exception) {
        // deal with the exception
    }
    @finally {
        // optional block of clean-up code
        // executed whether or not an exception occurred
    }

https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Co...

(I'll see myself out. For at least two reasons.)

[pjmlp]

We are on C17 nowadays.

[astrange]

ObjC doesn't change any existing C syntax, it only adds messages. C++ is an entirely different language with a different spec that merely looks like C.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

"Yes! C++ is nearly exactly a superset of Standard C95 (C90 and the 1995 Amendment 1). With very few exceptions, every valid C95 program is also a valid C++ program with the same meaning."

https://isocpp.org/wiki/faq/c

[astrange]

The implicit casting rules are different, it doesn't allow VLAs, you can implicitly create static constructors instead of having your program rejected for non-constants at the top level, more keywords are unavailable as variable names…

[pjmlp]

VLAs are optional since ISO C11, clang and gcc are probably the only C compilers that care to support them.

C17 also has its share of keywords and C2X plans to replace some of the _Keyword with they keyword version, as enough time has passed since their introduction.

[saagarjha]

Clang and GCC being the two largest implementations.