The Swift Journey

The journey to software development is quite similar to the journey for truth and self-enlightenment. There are people who spend their entire lives searching for truth and trying to find peace in their lives. Programmers too are searching for paradise and cosmic peace. In their case though instead of seeking philosophical leaders who can teach of spiritual enlightenment, programmers are searching for the perfect language or the greatest methodology that will allow their code to transcend programs mere mortals can produce and instead offer the world the perfect application. That sounds so mystical and something taken from the back cover of the latest book in the New Age book store but for those who view themselves as coders; that is probably more accurate than we care to admit.

My own personal journey has lasted for more than half my life. I have wandered from the fads of the day that offered the ability to create something from nothing in a way that is elegant and robust. That path has gone through mainframe computers with punch cards that were housed in their own tightly controlled buildings to devices and languages that required devices that took up your entire desk. Today the devices are smaller fitting in the palm of our hand or even strapped to our wrists.

Society has become a never-ending flow of consumers looking for applications and data to make their lives easier or sparking creativity that will allow them to attain their dreams. And with all of these consumers they are looking to someone to create the apps that they crave.

Each new year as we celebrate with toasts and cheers. We take that time to reflect on our accomplishments from the past 12 months and set goals of what we would like to do in the coming year. These are normally written down hastily in the wee hours of the morning on January first and then forgotten by the time the month turns to February. But sometimes, those goals ignite something inside of us and we stick with them. Those rare times we surprise ourselves in what we can accomplish.

For me, this year was all about growth. A time to recount my skills and identify areas I would like to expand. This isn’t a new goal, I have thought about it on several occasions but this time I am turning those dreams into reality by setting individual milestones to try and achieve.

A little over a week ago I began executing on one of these goals. I challenged myself to become a better developer and specifically to learn more about iOS development. I admit, when I bought my first iPhone, the iPhone 3 and saw the beginning of apps I was intrigued but found myself busy with other things and never quite found the time to devote to learning how to develop to a mobile device. The early years iOS development meant Objective-C and my C skills were pretty rusty so I sat on the sidelines and watched as other developers moved to this new platform.

But when Apple introduced their Swift development language it intrigued me. I read about it and even looked at some code. It seemed logical and, in some cases, elegant. But still I always seemed to find other things to do instead of picking up the skill and language myself.

Now though I am taking the plunge. I have ordered a few books, found a couple of podcasts, and even enrolled in a couple of Udemy courses. I’ve started to take a more active role in learning this language and platform.

One of the authors I found, Paul Hudson who wrote Hacking with Swift is developing a new curriculum called 100 Days of Swift where he is challenging us to commit to watching, reading, or writing Swift code for an hour a day then writing about it.