Slashdot Mirror
Xcode Update Gives Objective-C Garbage Collection
William Henderson writes "That's right, if you haven't read it for yourself yet, Objective-C '2.0' now supports garbage collection. I foresee a great, huge, gigantic debate about to ensue, and a lot of java-heads sparking 'I told you so'. Why not start it here on slashdot?"
Far more exciting is that Leopard gets DTrace. Look at the last line of the page the story links to.
Well, let's say as exciting.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Objective-C has no template system. This is a huge advantage for C++.
This is interesting because C++ has templates only because it needs them and Objective-C doesn't have them because there is no need. For instance, you can't have a C++ array of "anything", unless all objects descend from the same class, and then you are restricted to functions that were declared in that base class. That's because C++ is statically typed and needs to know the virtual table to use for the function call (whatever the function is). On the other hand, Objective-C does not need templates because function calls are not looked up through a virtual table, they are dynamically sent as messages, which are handled if the object implements that function. Hence, you can (and do) have a general-purpose array in Objective-C. You can even have a general purpose hash table with changing element types...! I'd love to see an implementation in C++ that is readable.
The "Object Penalty" (i.e. the cost of using a certain object-oriented language) is fixed, and it therefore reduces over time with faster and faster computers. C++ will do anything to make that cost as small as possible, including getting in your way. So really, the advantages of C++ are decreasing over time if you consider all the hoops you have to jump through to get what you want. When you really need performance in Objective-C, you write that little snippet of code in straight C (just like everyone else does in C++ .)
I was a C++ junkie for 10 years until I tried Objective-C and quickly noticed how much more complex a task I could handle without the language getting in my way. You should try it.