Hello Gisties!
It's been a while.
So I'm deep in the exploration of what it takes to live sustainably on an exponential change curve.
This isn't even remotely theoretical. Given how I do iOS Consulting (which is competently, but not blindingly fast), it's a struggle to stay über-current, much less on the edge. After being an iOS consultant for over 4-ish years, I can authentically say it's not going to happen accidentally.
Apple this year is doing something very different. They've made all their WWDC session videos available roughly the same day that they were given, along with the PDF slide deck and the source code.
They have also committed to shipping a new version of both iOS and OS X this fall. That's A LOT of technical data, APIs, and design patterns and Apple Engineering-directed content to pay attention to. And given how in-flux their stuff is, what's a developer to do?
Fortunately, the Apple Developer Community has pitched in a little bit. There are two BRILLIANT downloading scripts available that automagically download all the content generated for WWDC:
Andy Lee's Video and PDF Downloader
and
Johannes Fahrenkrug's WWDC 2013 source code downloader
Thank God!
BUT... that's not enough.
In case reading this gist doesn't know, Apple has essentially re-imagined iOS and dumped A TON of new computer science into both iOS and OS X. For iOS alone, they've created SpriteKit, UIKit Dynamics, UIKit Motion Effects, NSURLSession and other goodies.
Goodies I don't know about, unless I go spelunking into the session videos.
The other part to this problem is that I have A LOT of knowledge to acquire. Things I basically didn't learn before when the platform was new. Now that it's getting re-imagined, it's a whole other world to contend with.
So I have this "Remedial Senior Developer Reading List" that I've been meaning to incorporate as a practice for many months now. It looks something like this:
- Garfield and Mahoney's Building Cocoa Applications (the original Cocoa tutorial book, whose first form existed in 1992)
- Big Nerd Ranch's iOS Programming Guide, 4th Ed.
- Rob Napier's Advanced iOS 6 Programming (he updates this every year)
- BNR's Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X, 4th Ed.
- BNR's Advanced Mac OS X Programming, 2nd Ed.
- Marcus Zarra's Core Data videos
- Marcus Zarra's Core Data Book, 2nd Ed.
- Tim Isted's Core Data book
- Bill Dudney's Core Animation book
- Matt Long's Core Animation book
- Matt Drance's iOS Recipes book
- Programming with Quartz 2D
- Learning OpenGL ES for iOS by Erik Buck
- Cocoa Design Patterns by Erik Buck and Don Yacktman
And then there's a TON of additional content on iDeveloper.tv (which has just announced it's shutting itself down by the end of July -- EEEK!)
And then, of course, there's all the Apple Source Code that is begging to be re-written.
So good thing I got this 6 TB hard drive! (WOOOT!)
Also, two sets of Developer Interview Questions:
And I'm terribly confronted by it all. It's a large scope. 88-ish videos to watch, give or take. I have also been doing some Mac development, so I need to stay current there as well.
The thing is: if I don't do this NOW, I'm just going to fall further and further behind. Especially since the time will pass anyway until the next WWDC, no matter what my choice is.
The world is going to keep moving exponentially, no matter what I choose to do or not do.