choas in the machine
So after an early start to the day, posting resumes and applying for various jobs around the virtual job board world, I watched a dismal display of a baseball game and then set out to really dig into the world of XCode 3.0. Whew, I think that might have been a run-on sentence. Don’t tell anyone.
Honestly, I know that when I establish familiarity with the interface, it will be a VERY easy IDE to navigate. I can visualize everything by watching some of the tutorials that have been posted on YouTube and the like. But, right now, it seems a bit overwhelming. Of course, this is mostly due to a lack of thorough documentation in the form of available books. There is quite a variety of books pertaining to the earlier version of XCode, however, due to the changes to the Interface Builder, it is difficult to follow the instruction (I’m working with my father on this and he warned me about it- I’m starting to see it first-hand).
Nonetheless, I am invested and intrigued. And, of course, up far too late reading and playing.
I remember my first exposure to developing applications. Sadly, as a student of Information Technology in a Windows world, this early exposure was through Visual Studio 6. Granted, once one has the funds to afford such a pricey development package (yes, an outright indictment of Microsoft from me…..go figure), it’s a fairly easy IDE to navigate. Coding and building projects in Visual Basic became second-nature. Of course, most of this work was centered around developing front-end user interfaces for database integration. Nonetheless, it was challenging, yet fun. It actually gave me the tools and the abilities to build a comprehensive database application to automate some of the tasks that we were still performing in a paper environment at the time.
But looking at XCode 3.0 reminds me of the first time I opened Visual Studio .NET. I could see the wide variety of default classes, objects and methods, but felt overwhelmed by the major undertaking it would be to learn what each was and how to use them effectively in developing an application. Keep in mind, I gave up on .NET fairly early on as I had other projects brewing that were web-based. So my time was dedicated to learning and working with PHP, for the most part, with some Flash sprinkled in here and there.
But here I am, having come full-circle back to a place away from the web world, and I am trying to overcome the intimidation factor once again. Though I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of new books this fall, I don’t have that kind of time to waste. So I have to work with the tools at hand, limited as they may be.
But I’m excited. I’m looking forward to that day when (as my Dad said) the lightbulb goes off in my head. I think that’s the feeling that is most rewarding in any learning endeavor or new project. Of course, I’m trying to overcome my tendency to dig into building applications with the integrated Ruby on Rails classes….certainly a subject of much curiosity, not only on the Apple development front, but on the web front as well…….