Objective-C literals for NSDictionary, NSArray, and NSNumber

Well, I guess that was long overdue. Anyway, another nice step to bring Objective-C forward.<p>It seems to develop into a nice combination of low-level, high-performance C and a pretty straightforward, dynamic, object system. In short, I vastly prefer its object system to C++, because it reasonably trades some performance for greater dynamisms and an easier syntax.<p>It'll be interesting how Objective-C will develop.

This is for Apple LLVM 4.0 which ships with XCode 4.4.<p>Also included:<p><pre><code> - Automatic @synthesize - NSArray/NSDictionary subscripting, eg id object=MyArray[12];</code></pre>

This is fantastic. Previously I was employing a macro library that offered $dict(k, v, k, v) and $arr(1, 2, 3) and $bool. But the @[] feels much better, and it increases code portability if a class is not dependent upon a separate macro library. It will really remove the verbosity of objc which is oftentimes one of the major criticisms.

We've been talking about similar changes to Objective-J for quite some time (we already have JavaScript literals that map more cleanly than C ones). The one thing we've discussed that I don't think made it here is a set literal. It would be nice to have sets treated in a more first class way, considering how often arrays are used when sets would be more appropriate.

The excessively verbose collection syntax is my #1 pain point with Obj-C. Looking forward to kicking the tires on this one.

@-prefixed literals for collections are definitely welcome (I won't miss those nested 'dictionaryWith...' calls for sure).<p>Anyone know how the []-access will work? Is this going to be a special case for NSArray/NSDictionary synthesized in by the compiler, or is there going to be runtime support for a []-operator message a la Ruby, or maybe something related to key-value coding?<p>I hope this is done coherently, anyway. I worry that too many special cases to overcome problems like verbose collection access could snowball.

ugh. As much as I love the changes that Apple have been making to Objective-C, as someone with a rather large - first-time project undrway, the pace of change is just killing me. In the last three years we have seen blocks (and Grand Central Dispatch) and garbag collection, Automatic Reference Counting, and now this.<p>These are all good changes (well, except for garbage collection, but hey, they kicked that out with ARC anyway), but it really is hard to stay up-to-date. Yeah, I know, woe is me, my tools supplier is constantly supplying better free tools, but it is daunting having to review each of this evolutions, and determine if it is worth the effort to integrate it into my project.

Nice! As somebody who's not a member of the Mac Developer Program but whose Twitter feed has been <i>full</i> of people gushing about how nice the new additions to Objective-C are, I'm glad to see what all the hubbub is about.

I'm glad to see these additions, but the syntax for an NSArray literal bugs me.<p>When I want an array literal in C, I'd write ...<p><pre><code> int foo[] = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5}; </code></pre> ... but in Objective-C, for an NSArray literal I'd write ...<p><pre><code> NSArray *bar = @[o1, o2, o3]; </code></pre> Why did they choose '[' over '{'? Oddly enough, NSDictionary uses '{'.<p>I feel like the syntax for an NSString literal is more natural (as a C developer).<p><pre><code> NSString *baz = @"look, an NSString literal"; char szBaz[] = "look, a C string literal";</code></pre>

Well this is good news. I have nothing to complain about here, it was even done with the obviously correct syntax following the principle of least surprise. Yay!

On one hand, it's nice, and it'll make coding in Obj-C nicer.<p>On the other hand, it strengthens the coupling between Objective-C the language the Cocoa the framework, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.<p>I do like it better than the property dot syntax though. (is a simple assignment to a struct member? is it an objc_msgSend of unknown complexity?)

Nice. I wish for ability for function to return multiple values. Is it possible at all?

Does this come courtesy of a new version of the Objective-C language?<p>The definition of ObjC confuses me a bit. It's said to be a superset of C - but which C? C89? C99? GNU-C-Something?