Day 17: It Begins

It's been two and a half weeks of reading, watching screencasts, experimenting, and finally coding, but here I am finally with my first completed iPhone project. It's ridiculously simple, doesn't do anything useful, and is of no use to anyone outside of myself and my kids. But I've gotta say that having that first application on my iPhone feels pretty good. I'm finally starting to understand how the architecture is structured, how to use the tools, and generally how to make stuff happen. And, really, isn't that what engineering is all about? Making stuff happen, in a nutshell, is why I went for engineering and not science back in the day.

I'm excited to show my sons the new application, "friends", which simply lists all their imaginary play friends, allows them to select them, see pictures, and hear random sound clips for each. The programming was fun, but I must admit that I also got a thrill out of taking the pictures and recording the sounds, imagining the reaction of Ethan and Noah. "friends" is a small step, but a step nonethless towards my company's mission: writing applications to entertain my kids.

Hooray!

Day 9: Staring Up the Curve

I'm undergoing a sine wave of excitement and panic, with a wavelength of a day, sometimes hours. Right now I'm firmly in the panic portion of the graph, and the amplitude is freakin' huge. My iPhone "application" now plays a sound, and I even know enough to see that it already has a flaw with how it handles playing that sound. But when I look at Apple's sample code, I get glassy eyed and my heart starts pounding, because I look at the code and think, "I never would have thought of doing that," and, "I have no idea what that even does!" It's at times like this when I feel like a complete idiot and despair of ever joining the ranks of Real Programmers, those geniuses who, through sheer force of intellect, automatically comprehend and even revel in this gibberish before me. I'm never going to understand this! Never!

In the back of my mind, I realize my panic is an odd thing, because I've created any number of custom apps and systems over the years and so you'd think that I'd have some measure of confidence. But, if I have any, it's cowering behind the medulla oblongata, whimpering softly so as to not be noticed.

Back to pushing the boulder up Sisyphus' learning curve...

Day 4: I Don't Know Time

So here's day 4 of my unemployment. It's quite amazing how fast time goes when you're not working. When my job ended, I actually thought, hey, now that I don't have to spend 9-10 hours a day working, I'll have all that time to ramp up on iPhone development! I'll be up and running in no time!

Yeah.

The car needs to be fixed over three days due to parts being ordered in serial, each only after the last one is received. The graying ground beef and gently decaying vegetables in the fridge need to be tossed and replaced with fresh versions, presumably to be cooked this time. My wife needs help proofreading her grant, intermittent tech support, and to be generally supported during her busy phase. My oldest son bites a kid at school that used to bully him, and needs to be sat down and talked to.

Finally, I get to sit down and really concentrate. Oops, it's already 4 pm, and I have all of two hours left before I need to take the kids off of our babysitter's hands. At this point, I can't concentrate because I'm thinking about how the day's end is already near, so I just squirrel around watching hilarious videos and reading about a woman who apparently gives birth like a possum. Whee!

Day 3: I Don't Know Sh-Jack

Starting to get started on the iPhone development. There are a number of excellent screencasts on learning Objective-C and iPhone development at Pragmatic Programmers that I've begun going through. The screencasts are excellent, and I'm beginning to get a feel for the Objective-C syntax as well as a vague sense of what developing for the iPhone is going to be like. But what I'm really learning is that I don't know sh- (Allison glares: "Language!") I mean, I don't know sh-jack.

It's alternatingly inspiring and depressing to read about guys like Ethan Nicholas, who made a bejeezus amount of money on a fun little iPhone game called iShoot. Ethan apparently didn't know anything about iPhone development, OpenGL, or Objective-C before coding his game in six weeks and subsequently quitting his job for the sweet life. On the one hand, I think, "Hey, I don't know anything, either! That guy could be me!" On the other hand, I think that maybe this guy is one of those piano prodigies that, by merely existing, reminds you that some (okay, a lot) of people are just better than you, and, no, your rendition of Axel F is not as cool as you thought it was. Even when you were playing it with both hands.

I think maybe that's part of why people love the lottery. You don't have to be smart, handsome, witty, or any of that stuff - just be lucky. Woo-hoo, anyone can do that!

Right?

Day 1: the longest journey

"Even the longest journey must begin where you stand." - Lao Tzu

Day 1 of unemployment starts now, and I haven't yet shaken the disquiet associated with ending my last contract. It feels somewhat like leaving an apartment that you called home for a couple of years. The apartment was homey and snug, sometimes cold but oftentimes warm, and it was just generally a fixture of day-to-day life, familiar and constant. Looking through the door at its now-empty rooms and bare floors summons a host of feelings, but mostly sadness. It's time to move on.

I've heard a number of platitudes over the past week or two that vaguely apply. "When one door closes, another opens." "You'll find something else." "This may be a blessing in a disguise." And so on. But I think the one that most closely applies is this one:

"Yes! Crisitunity!" - Homer Simpson

Amazed, hopeful, and just a bit dim.