What is the difference between NSObject and AnyObject? When to use the two?

Question

I'm trying to create an array to store Strings or an array of custom class. Am I better off creating a dictionary?

Answer 1

AnyObject is Swift's representation of Objective-C's id type. It's more general than NSObject (i.e. every NSObject is an AnyObject, but not every AnyObject is a NSObject).

On the other part of the question - depends on how you intend to use the structure. Using a more particular class for the generic structure (Swift's typed array or dictionary) will allow you to enjoy the benefits of the strong typing, whereas using a more generic type will allow you to be more dynamic. Really it depends on what you intend to use the class for.