A tutorial introduction to Swarm: Language choice

Objective C vs. Java

Superficially, Objective C and Java have a certain resemblance. Both languages have a syntax inspired by C (http://www.lysator.liu.se/c), and both languages share most of the same primitive types. However, Objective C and Java have fundamental differences.

In the Swarm community, there is more experience with Objective C.
The Java community is large. For example, there are many books on Java.
Java encourages static typing, while Objective C encourages dynamic typing.
Objective C has all the low-level features of C
Java has garbage collection

In summary, while Objective C has advantages, the cultural and practical advantages of Java outweigh them in for the purposes of getting started with Swarm. Therefore, the remainder of this tutorial is presented using Java.