Objective-C Archives

// A refactoring mishap with arithmetic expressions led me down the rabbit hole of operator precedence differences between Swift and Objective-C. Here's what to watch for.

// KVO lets you observe property changes without delegation or notifications. Here's how it works under the hood and how to use it correctly.

// Before Swift closures, Objective-C had blocks. The syntax is different, but the power is the same—here's how to use them effectively.

// Every Objective-C class inherits from NSObject (usually). Here's what NSObject provides and why it matters for every object you create.

// Both let you add methods to classes, but categories and class extensions serve different purposes. Here's when to use each.

// Unlike C++ virtual methods, Objective-C uses dynamic message passing. Understanding this mechanism unlocks the language's full power.

// Retain cycles are the most common memory leak in Objective-C. Learn how they form, how to detect them, and patterns that prevent them.

// Objective-C lacks namespaces, so the community invented conventions. Here's how prefixes and other patterns help avoid collisions in a flat symbol space.

// Objective-C is famous for verbose naming. Let's celebrate (or mourn) the longest method and class names hiding in Apple's standard libraries.

// Objective-C supports exception handling with @try/@catch, but the community settled on NSError pointers instead. Here's why.

// Swizzling is powerful but dangerous. Here are the common pitfalls and how to avoid turning your clever hack into a debugging nightmare.

// Method swizzling lets you replace method implementations at runtime. Here's how it works and when this powerful technique shines.

// Understand the class cluster pattern that makes NSString, NSArray, and NSDictionary work, and learn how to implement your own.

// Discover how the Objective-C runtime secretly stores small strings directly in pointer values, eliminating heap allocations entirely.

// Learn how dispatch barrier queues provide elegant reader-writer synchronization in Objective-C without explicit locks or semaphores.