Posts have been pretty light lately. I’ve taken up some work at my new gig and it involves writing iOS apps in Objective-C. I found a fantastic book at my local Half Price books that got me rolling called Objective-C Programming by the Big Nerd Ranch group.

A few things I’ve found interesting about my new gig and tools of the trade…

XCode is really horrible. It has not learned any common user experience patterns. It feels like I’m using Blender to make crayon drawings. The biggest nuisance for me is finding references to objects. It’s not all that simple in Obj-C, I get that, but for the love of all things sane…

I really like how Apple has streamlined their certificates and signing. I did this 3 years ago and it was an undeniable mess back then. Now it’s as simple as clicking Fix Issues and waiting for a build to reach my device (assuming you’ve got a developer account setup).

I’m thoroughly enjoying working in a code base with a motivated and passionate group of people that want to ship features and improvements often.

iOS programming requires a lot more thorough testing than I’ve been giving it. I’ve seen no fewer than 3 new bugs created by me in the last few changes I’ve made. I’ll be hunkering down a bit on my speed of changes to ensure they have all the proper intent without the nasty side-effects.

That’s all for now – it’s been a busy two weeks of getting up-to-speed with the new company, new team, and relearning iOS development.