September in (and out of) iOS
This month my intention was to continue the Udacity Nanodegree program. I think the learn-by-doing approach it takes is great, and usually works well for me. However, in a fit of frustration -- wrestling with NSRegularExpression for something that would be trivial in many other languages and forgetting about the .rangeOfString method -- I began to reflect on the overall experience and my approach to learning at this point. What were really my goals in becoming a better iOS programmer? I'm familiar with enough of the APIs and resources for learning, can wade through the docs if necessary, have built some toy apps, etc. So why the urgency to add more to the never-ending list of things to keep up with (in code, business and law)? What other stuff would get put on the backburner for a while? Well, part of the problem is that the other stuff is never really on the backburner. I spend my days in Ruby and the browser, and absolutely love it, and my subway rides reading articles and ...