Objective-C

Object-oriented over C, message passing. First appeared 1984; c family; nextstep, macos, ios.

Record¶

First appeared	1984
Family	C family
Paradigm emphasis	Object-oriented over C, message passing
Typing	Static core with dynamic dispatch
Memory	Manual then ARC
Execution	AOT compiled
Primary domain	NeXTSTEP, macOS, iOS
Designers	Brad Cox and Tom Love
Reference	https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ProgrammingWithObjectiveC/
Last verified	not yet checked against its source by a human

Dates are first public release or publication, not the start of internal development. Colour on the typing and memory tags encodes kind, never rank.

Influence¶

Figure 1. Objective-C in the influence graph: recorded ancestors on the left, languages that record it as an influence on the right. Every node links to its own record. Edges name indexed languages only, so an empty side means no indexed relative, not none at all. Source: languages.json.

Within the C family¶

Curly-brace syntax and an imperative core, descending from ALGOL through C. The tradition most later languages either extend or explicitly react against.

Language	First appeared	Typing	Memory	Execution
COBOL	1959	Static, weak	Static allocation	AOT compiled
ALGOL 60	1960	Static	Stack-based	AOT compiled
Simula 67	1967	Static	Tracing GC	AOT compiled
Pascal	1970	Static, strong	Manual	AOT compiled
C	1972	Static, weak	Manual	AOT compiled
C++	1985	Static, partly weak	Manual with RAII	AOT compiled
Go	2009	Static, strong	Concurrent tracing GC	AOT compiled
Dart	2011	Static, strong, sound null safety	Generational tracing GC	JIT for development, AOT compiled for release

8 other languages in this family, ordered by first appearance. Objective-C itself is omitted. Source: languages.json.