[halogen64]

Why would they mention smalltalk? The article is framed from the writer's specific experience with both languages, not as a historical deep dive into the progenitors of Objective-C.

Granted these historical details are super interesting, but feels far from the intent of the article.

[waynecochran]

Because that is in essence why Obj-C works the way it does -- e.g., has all the square brackets. Obj-C is the child of smalltalk and C. It wasn't created in a vacuum.