iOS Language gripes

This thread is mainly for us programmers to talk about the various things we don't like about Objective-C and/or Swift. The nice thing about Swift is that Apple seems to have taken a page or two from the scripting playbook.

OK, on with the griping:
First, what's wrong with using a + sign for concatenation? Can't the compiler be trained to treat as (Note: Swift does use the + operator for concatenation)
Second, what's so great about pointers? In C++, the only thing you use them for is to create a new variable that is different only in name from an old variable; if x=2 and p=x, and p is a pointer, and we have access to both variables, and p's value is untouched after the part where p is set to x, then we can choose to get either one's value.

mobilehaathi said:

You've never dynamically allocated an array or used a function pointer in a general algorithm?

Click to expand...

1) If, by "dynamically," you mean "in runtime," and you're talking about Objective_c, then yes. Otherwise, no.
2) No.

The point is, I think Objective-C pointers do nothing other than cause confusion as to when they're supposed to be used. in C++, variables don't need to be declared as pointers to their own memory; for quite a few situations (or so it seems), one can afford to forego declaring a pointer.