This blog is about my quest to become an Apple Mobile device developer. I am using this blog medium as a way to hold myself to a goal I have made for myself which is to get my first app into the Apple App Store by May 1, 2013. In this forum I will record what I learned each day and how many hours are spent. It forces me to be honest with myself which, in learning a new language, is 99% of the battle.
A little background about myself. I just turned 48. In programmers years that is ancient. I have been developing Access applications since 1993. Many do not even consider Access and VBA a programming language but I have never had a day on the bench. I did classic ASP work in the late 1990s into the early 2000s. When .Net came out I shelled out a lot of $ to take a course to learn how to develop with it. At the time I thought I learned a lot but I didn't learn much at all - and it was my fault. For some reason I thought I would learn by osmosis. Anyway, after the course was over I thought I could waltz in and get .net work. Turns out the world was slow to adopt and there was still plenty of Access work around. Figuring who am I to turn down $, I continued down the Access path. Maybe a mistake, maybe not. In the meantime, the classic ASP work dried up in favor of .Net and I was left with Access as a single development tool.
As the years went on, I began doing some BI work with a product called Xcelsius. It is a flash-based program that draws pretty graphs and impresses executives. It is a neat tool as it can be embedded into anything that works with Flash, including PowerPoint and PDFs. Apple does not like Flash but PCs do. I am pretty proficient with this product so between that and MS Access and some other things, I am still doing OK. But I see the writing on the wall. I am not getting any younger and I feel the need to grab onto something that I can develop in until my retirement, ideally 11.5 years from now.
Apple now owns a big part of the world. Mobile apps are dominating and it looks like they are here to stay in a big way. I feel I have been given a new life by being able to bypass the whole web development thing right into mobile apps on products loved by people inside and outside of the workplace. Moreover, even if I was doing .Net, I hear very little knowledge transfers over the Apple product. Essentially, I am at a starting point shared by many and it feels good to know that. I do wish I would have known this 4-5 years ago when the first iPhone came out but who knew it, along with the iPad was going to explode like this!
I hate to admit that I lack confidence and I am frugal. This is a bad combination. I want to go out and buy a mac notebook but I can't yet pull the trigger. I am scared that I am all gung-ho now but will quit in a few weeks after it either gets too difficult or if I am pulled away doing something else. But I know that being pulled away is something I allow to happen to myself and it any excuse I make cannot veer from the real reason - that I have given up due to fear of failure. For now, I am not buying anything but reading and learning. I know that I must do this if I am to have viability in my 50s. Many of my friends have been out of classic full time work for years. I feel my back is against the wall and I have to succeed.
I have read a lot of articles about iOS development that the learning curve is steep and that at times you will want to bang your head against the wall or throw your hands up and quit. Some have said that when you get to that point, you are near a breakthrough. This to me is good news. It means that if I stick it out, I could be one of the chosen few. Moreover, I have learned that Apple development is not yet embraced by India and China as mac machines are too pricey. Another advantage. Also, since everyone is getting an iPhone or iPad, there is huge demand.
I see a lot of upside to this Apple development. My company may be moving to iPhones so I may be able to work my way into a development leadership role. If not, I still can develop apps on my own. But I am not fooling myself into believing this will happen overnight. Hence my 1 year goal. I need to learn things in a methodical order. I am starting with learning Objective-C. I am reading through Stephen Kochan's Programming in Objective C as I heard this book is great for Objective-C beginners such as myself. If all goes well, I will move into the Nerd Ranch's iOS development guide.
To date I have read 25 pages of the Kochan guide. I have retained little but I understand everything I have read so far. I am very excited about it and pray I do not procrastinate too much. Alas, I have to now go outside and spray for pests. Then I have to do some more inside cleanup. See? Life already gets in the way!
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