Now the competition between Swift and Objective C is intensifying rapidly. This is easy to understand because they all have their own benefits, and some developers are confused about how to choose a programming language that suits the project.
First, there is no strict answer to the choice between the two. There are many things to consider before making a choice, including various factors and characteristics, their own shortcomings and advantages. So here is an overview to objectively show the differences and pros and cons between the two parties, because we think it is wise to choose based on whether it is suitable for you and the specific project.
Management Considerations
The first consideration is based on the specific team selection. Even though Swift is often called a simpler, smoother syntax language, it removes some of the hassle of more complex Objective-C, there are still some barriers to entry. The correct question here is not "what would happen if the team could build a new project using Swift/Objective-C", but "Can the current team use it to complete the task before the deadline?
Meeting with your team to ask them, you must make sure that they can not only be implemented using Swift, but also ensure that they are done in a timely manner. If the team is an Objective-C expert, it is not a good idea to force them to use Swift and use it on a project with a strict deadline. vice versa. A strict deadline determines the most comfortable language for the team (if not covered by the environment).
Project Scale
The next consideration might be the size of the project. Small projects can benefit from Swift's simple syntax, file structure and other features, while large projects may be influenced by Swift, a young language. Of course there will be means to switch to a new version of Xcode, but they are not perfect and things get worse as the project grows. Swift also brings some shortcomings because of its youth, such as errors and instability. Taking Swift's native IDE - Xcode as an example, crashes are often reported, and many incompatibility of the Xcode language have also been reported. Although the efficiency improvement in Xcode is quite fast, many errors have been solved. But some new mistakes will come.
Technical reasons
There are many differences between the two languages, but they have at least one important feature - they are both Apple's primary programming languages suitable for application development on all Apple platforms. Objective-C was developed in the early 1980s and it belongs to Generation X. The original Cocoa is written in it, although the written section of Swift has been added to Cocoa and Cocoa Touch since its launch in 2014.
Objective-C is a strict superset of C, which gets its object-oriented syntax from Xerox Smalltalk. Its properties are highly dynamic, with dynamic binding and dynamic typing, while Swift has static type checking.
Now let's look at the advantages of these two languages. One advantage can be considered a disadvantage of the other.
Why choose Swift
Easy to use
Swift is designed to be easier to use and easier to read and understand than Objective-C. Its syntax is closer to natural English, abandoning some traditional conventions - no more brackets, no more "@" before any object-related keywords or Objective-C specific types. Looks clearer; Swift is sometimes called "Objective-C without C". Swift is not based on C. It not only simplifies the syntax, but also lowers the threshold for programmers such as Java, Python, C++ to master Swift.
Swift is not that verbose, especially in string processing, and even supports adding strings with a simple "+".
Memory management is unified throughout the code. Unlike previous object-oriented, automatic reference counting (ARC) can now be applied simultaneously in both object-oriented and process-oriented parts of the code. Objective-C will have a lot of memory leaks, which Swift makes impossible and frees programmers from developing.
Additionally, Swift does not use a dual file system, does not have more .h header files + .m implementation files, and only one .swift code file (thanks to the LLVM compiler and Xcode IDE dependency processing).
Safety
Swift is designed as a safe language. There is no safe language in this world that does not fail, but error handling is very good to consider and the type system is very powerful.
Unlike Objective-C that doesn't throw exceptions on nil pointer calls, for example, if you try to call a method of an uninitialized pointer variable, it just makes the expression none, and the optional type and value type of Swift make the compiler errors on nil pointer calls. This means that unpredictable unstable behavior associated with no operation disappears, which greatly reduces the cost of bug fixes.
Dynamic library
In iOS 8, a long-awaited new technology is brought to the mobile platform - supporting dynamic libraries. Since then, Swift apps have been able to link to newer versions of Swift, allowing Swift to evolve faster than iOS, a must for modern languages. Dynamic libraries are also external application executables that allow for smaller initial downloads and differentiated loads of mobile and embedded applications.
future
Swift may only be two years old, but its popularity has rapidly grown to around 30% of all open source Cocoa projects since 2014. As Apple explicitly aims to replace Objective-C as their primary language, it will turn to Swift in the future.
But this is not a problem that will be achieved tomorrow, and this transition will take some time, but it is expected to be around 5-10 years, so there is time for developers to adapt.
The popular efficiency Apple software defect reporting tool shows how hard Apple is promoting Swift. Apple will also adapt to the community’s ideas, absorb its knowledge and experience, and implement its solutions in future releases. The perfect way.
Why choose Objective-C
Compatibility and support
Despite the efforts of the Xcode team, the IDE is not very supportive of Swift because it may be too new. The automatic completion lags, the syntax highlights almost non-basic functions, and the refactoring tool will not work. It has been using Objective-C for a while (>30 years!), and it is very mature and has very brilliant tools to support.
Since Swift is "C-free", the C++ library is not available here. The same includes the C++ cross-platform SDK and API basis (such as CoreFoundation).
There are tools like bridging and wrapping classes, but these efforts are usually not worth it, sticking to Objective-C is best done using C++ and Foundation APIs.
Swift is not only young, but also incompatible with the old operating system, and its support starts with iOS 7.0+ and Mac OS 10.9+ (TVOS and watchOS support any version of Swift), so Objective-C is the preferred tool platform for old platforms.
major
Not only are some teams more experienced in Objective-C, but it is easier to find third-party experts if you are interested in outsourcing some parts of your project.
dynamic
Although Swift can benefit from optimization from static type checking, the instantly added method is no longer available, and all types are defined before runtime. If you absolutely need dynamic typing, then Swift won't work.
run
Objective-C is a more certain platform, so it has a more stable, tougher and reliable runtime. We don't want to say that Swift can't achieve this scale, but it takes time.
in conclusion
As we have seen, both languages have their own strengths and tradeoffs, but they do have the potential to work together (on smaller projects, but preferably).