Links to Artists
Learning Objective-C (and C)
Many years ago when I was in college I learned to program in C. It was basically just hardware level stuff. Communicate to an LED or something over a micro controller’s IO. But I had always wanted to learn how to program a computer so that I could make apps to accomplish things I wanted a computer to do for me.
One project I’m really hoping to accomplish is to make a simple program to schedule a group of people to handle a project in my congregation. In order to get that started I needed to relearn C and then get caught up on Objective-C because I wanted to make it an iOS app if possible. If iOS would be too much then I wanted to make it a Mac app at the very least.
I got started by purchasing the book Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide”.
This has been a great book. The author does a fantastic job at encouraging the reader. Much of the information is going to, and does, feel a bit overwhelming. But the author continues to throw in reminders that this is normal and that you will end up using these tools so much that you’ll eventually feel very comfortable with them and they won’t be so confusing. And he’s right! The more you go through the book and the more often you see certain things used over and over, you become familiar with them and you’re able to type things out without even having to refer back to the sample code.
So far so good. The first few chapters on C programming were very easy. I suspect this is only because I was already familiar with many of the concepts. If you’re a first timer you’ll come up to speed with things quickly. Towards the end of the C programming section I was feeling a little overwhelmed but I’m pressing on. Determined not to let this get the best of me.
I hope to post more about my experience with learning how to program and specifically how to program using Objective-C and Xcode.
Side note. I love Xcode. Previously I only ever used a text editor for all of my coding. Xcode is fantastic. There are a lot of simple things that it does that really help with identifying bugs and syntax errors. For instance when you type your closing parenthesis your opening and closing parenthesis will expound and be highlighted and yellow before returning to their original appearance. It’s just a great visual indicator to allow you to quickly and easily tell which parenthesis you just closed. I’m sure other IDE’s do similar things but coming from a text file based programming background, this was pretty nice.
Apple iOS Linen Background
I love the Apple iOS linen background that you can see when certain apps are loading, like iBooks. I thought it might make a cool background for Wunderlist and then I thought maybe it could make a cool background for my iPad and iPhone so I created a background for each of them. I made them a universal size for the iPad so even when you rotate it, it won’t distort. Enjoy!
I’m noticing this more and more and more. My Cr-48 notebook has delighted me in many ways. I really feel like Google’s Chrome team is really nailing it. They’re paying attention to detail. I would not be the least bit surprised to learn that the Chrome team’s manager is very good at what he does and is very careful about what his team puts into the product. Much like Steve Jobs at Apple.
Now I have my criticisms of Chrome (H.264 and their Flash loving ways) but in general it’s has been my browser of choice for over 2 years now.
Details, details, details. It’s the software equivalent to the housing market’s “Location, location, location.” People sometime ask me why I prefer iOS over Android. Besides some very obvious reasons that get listed constantly on thousands of websites, there is this underlying “something” that just makes everything feel so much better.
Here is one small example, and I can guarantee you there are hundreds, if not thousands of other very small examples like this where somebody actually thought about this stuff. It’s that attention to detail that makes the whole user experience just so much better.
