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 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?