Re: Kernel Development & Objective-C

Kyle Moffett
2007-11-30T19:35:50Z

On Nov 30, 2007, at 13:40:07, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Kyle Moffett wrote:
>> With that said, there is a significant performance penalty as all
>> Objective-C method calls are looked up symbolically at runtime for
>> every single call.
>
> GACK!
>
> At least C++ has vtables.

In a tight loop there is a way to do a single symbolic lookup and
just call directly through a function pointer, but typically it isn't
necessary for GUI programs and the like. The flexibility of being
able to dynamically add new methods to an existing class (at least
for desktop user interfaces) significantly outweighs the performance
cost. Any performance-sensitive code is typically written in
straight C anyways.

Cheers,
Kyle Moffett