Generally speaking HN is quite anti Obj-C ( or even anything C, C++, basically the whole C family ). They think of it a as relics of the past. The future has to be Rust or Swift.
I often wonder what if Apple continue to improve Obj-C instead of Swift.
I really like Alan Kays's metaphor. Instead of reinventing the wheel ( which isn't so bad ), more often than not in technology they reinvent the flat tire.
I think one of Apple's priorities is memory safety for their systems programming language. Probably too hard to get Obj-C there, and that's before you get to Swift's nice syntax and modern type system. Unfortunately Swift does introduce some type system handcuffs, which I don't like, but overall it seems good.
If I had to guess, I would say that the HN crowd is not fond of unverified claims that are not backed by any source other than the person personal opinion.
> "Obj-C is a much better framework language than C++.
How and why is that true?"
Anyone could throw these sort of claims about absolutely anything and doesn't elevate the debate at all.
> "I honestly think Objective-C is a big part of Apple's OS success."
From Aaron Hillegass Cocoa® Programming for Mac® OS X, Third Edition
Once upon a time, there was a company called Taligent, which was created by IBM and Apple to develop a set of tools and libraries like Cocoa. About the time Taligent reached the peak of its mindshare, I met one of its engineers at a trade show. I asked him to create a simple application for me: A window would appear with a button, and when the button was clicked, the words “Hello, World!” would appear in a text field. The engineer created a project and started subclassing madly: subclassing the window and the button and the event handler. Then he started generating code: dozens of lines to get the button and the text field onto the window. After 45 minutes, I had to leave. The app still did not work. That day, I knew that the company was doomed. A couple of years later, Taligent quietly closed its doors forever.
It is asserted a bit later than C++ was the problem.
I get the feeling some of the Java Cocoa experience applies to C++. Although the C++ of the 90's is most definitely not the C++ of the 2020's.
FWIW I've written frameworks in both Obj-C and C++ (macOS kernel)