Re: Objective-C and it's future

FROM : Rob Ross
DATE : Sat Jul 08 02:29:39 2006

On Jul 7, 2006, at 4:55 PM, Charlton Wilbur wrote:

>
> On Jul 7, 2006, at 7:33 PM, Thomas Davie wrote:
>

>> The most basic extension of the type system I can think of is to 
>> allow something akin to generics, or ADTs to allow us to specify 
>> such things as what type of object an array contains.

>
> Dynamic typing means you don't *need* Java-style generics or C++-
> style templates -- they are, after all, an attempt to give static 
> typing the flexibility of dynamic typing.  Java needs generics so 
> that the compiler can determine what type an object is; Objective-C 
> punts the decision to runtime.  This is not a mistake, but an 
> intentional design decision; the things that prevent you from doing 
> stupid things often also prevent you from doing brilliant things.


I'm just learning Obj-C myself, so maybe my understanding is not 
correct. But, don't you actually have the option to use static typing 
in certain instances, and use dynamic typing in others?

Eg:

id    myStr;

vs

NSString *myStr;


Won't the second version give you the benefits of static typing 
(compiler time checking)?

So my understanding is you can have the best of both worlds. Or have 
I misunderstood something?

Rob Ross