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I agree. Putting in the id return or not is irrelevant.

I also think his larger point is important though. The general trend towards more explicit typing being the default is a move away from Objective-C's Smalltalk roots and this is a bad trend.

I suspect it is somewhat influenced by Java programmers invading the Objective-C space and spreading their rigid typing, pattern-itis cancer.

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You are right about your suspicion. In fact, one of the central characters came out an flatly stated that Java was a better language. He had a hand in the "modern syntax" (anyone remember that?), property dot notation and the GC implementation that ultimately failed.

He also once said to me that Objective-C being a statically typesafe language was a fact that could not be argued about.

Hmm.

Also agreed that whether the (id) is there or not doesn't matter (much). I myself have been happily reading over it without really noticing for upwards of two decades now. What bugs me is the claim that it has to be there.

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