Leah Culver - Three weeks of iPhone development | Hacker News Reader

Leah Culver - Three weeks of iPhone development

blog.leahculver.com

66 pointstwampss43 comments

> Memory management in Objective-C isn't nearly as terrifying as I thought it would be but it is very frustrating to see the non-descriptive EXEC BAD ACCESS. I always make a ton of mistakes when trying out new things. Luckily, I'm good at debugging!

At some critical point, Objective-C/Cocoa stops being the problem (EXC_BAD_ACCESS, IB gotchas, CoreData mysteries) and starts becoming the solution. Highly recommend "Cocoa Design Patterns"

I really like Leah's tone in this essay. It sounds like she is having fun with the jump-in-the-deep-end and start treading code method of learning.

> It sounds like she is having fun with the jump-in-the-deep-end and start treading code method of learning.

The best way to learn how to swim is to drown.

Wait, that can't be right.

Deleted comment

I disagree. The article offers relevant pointers, reasons, links and first-person impressions (that's the whole point of blogging!). If I were interested in getting started with iPhone development, she provides me with books, tutorials, examples and libraries and their documentation, twitter feeds and her point of view. That, to me, is valuable. If Ms. Culver is "vain beyond words" or not, is completely irrelevant.

Do we know she is vain? I don't know Leah, do you know her?

I always thought when you were writing a blog post on your personal blog you should probably refer to yourself as "I", it would be significantly worse if she referred to herself in the third person.

Another commenter mentioned that you might be non-technical (hate that term). But for reference, Spencer Fry has a comprehensive and awesome list of the value of business-oriented people at a startup. Yin and Yang.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=779378

http://spencerfry.com/whats-a-non-programmer-to-do

indiejade,

I have read your snarky comments here on HN. I don't understand where your negativity is coming from.

Are you still peeved that engineers are more valued than business people in the startup world?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1106403

Oh well, indiejade, deleted her comment.

I'm sure I'll get buried for this, but I have a hard time believing I'm not right. Before I start, I don't know Leah and I'm not judging her character or her coding abilities.

Leah gets a lot of attention for the one obvious reason that doesn't need to be restated. That is why these articles are posted. This blog post doesn't contain any unique information that is presented any better than you could find elsewhere. She has not been involved in that many projects and few of them have gone very far. Pownce was probably her peak.

So I'm not trying to be negative or a nitpicker or anything else like that. I just can't stand that people post the most minute things she does. I remember Techcrunch posted an article the other day because she joined some other company and left SixApart.

There are so many developers and designers that are switching around every day and we barely hear about it aside from the big league players. The fact that Ms. Culver gets her own slice of attention for doing almost nothing of noteworthiness starts to wear on my patience is all.

Have you seen her work in OAuth? Her other open-source projects?

You are guilty for the same reason you are accusing others for giving her attention.

You don't think she's good enough because of it.

Seriously, the startup world and the Valley is such a male-dominated place. I would imagine it's not easy being a woman in this space.

There are so many blog posts from men who went to the top of Hacker News and some of them from people who have no experience delivering. I also haven't seen any of her posts here for a long time.

I'm not saying we cut her slack but let's hold her to the same standard we do for posts by men here on Hacker News.

I'm not saying we cut her slack but let's hold her to the same standard we do for posts by men here on Hacker News

That's exactly what the post you're replying to was suggesting.

Their point was that if any other (male) developer had made the exact same post, it would not have made it to the front page of HN.

I don't think it's fair to say that.

Look at the article that was linked here. I'm not blaming any of this on her. The guy who added this and the people who upvote it only did so for one reason.

There is hardly anything informative in this article that hasn't been said a million times over. EDIT: I shouldn't even be calling it an article.

Your idea that its hard being a woman in a male-dominated industry such as this...that's a whole other argument for another time.

People like you are part of the reason it is hard. You should follow a good rule for commenting: don't say things that you wouldn't say to someone's face.

Even if you were right (and I have no idea if you are), this is a pretty poisonous form of ad hominem. Is a few too many people upvoting her posts such a bad thing that it justifies making a comment like this in order to correct it?

Kudos to pg for stepping in here. There is an increasingly venomous tone in HN and even when someone responds they are voted down.

In my case maybe I deserve a little of it for being an over the top marketer some of the time, but civil discourse evaporating here. the ad hominem stuff basically drives away the good people.

it will be sad if HN goes to the haters

Even if you were right (and I have no idea if you are), this is an even more insidious form of ad hominem. Would you have felt the need to post that if someone pointed out the lack of accomplishments of some random male developer?

People are quite ruthless with what they perceive as fluff blog posts from ANY source, and I'm not sure your generation's social mores regarding politeness or chivalry are necessarily the correct prescription for alleviating discrimination.

Your implication that women shouldn't be held to the same standard is inherently condescending.

Pocket Fun Games - would you have funded a MALE single founder in another country doing a FREE iPhone app? Not exactly a million-dollar idea, those free, ad-free iPhone apps.

It's not just throwing away your/Sequoia's money, it's that when you fail to hold female applicants to the same standard, the resulting failures add grist to the mill for the other side of the sexist argument, which presumably is the opposite effect from what you intend.

Yes, I would have. I'm quite concerned about the increasingly nasty tone on HN, of which your comment is a startling example. I've read a lot of the comments on HN over the last 3 years and I've seen few so venomous. And ironically, completely mistaken. Pocket Fun Games has two founders, one of them male, and they are one of the most profitable companies from their YC cycle.

I see where you're coming from, but I don't think it's the "obvious reason." I think the reason is because many Hacker News users seem to adore celebrity in all its forms.. in the past we've had similarly trivial posts from certain "names" in our field crop up on HN with regularity. All of them men so far, in my recollection.

I'd agree that that effect is in play to some extent, but I did learn a couple of things, which is more than I can say about many articles that get posted here.

Because of this article, I now know about ASIHTTPRequest, which is very likely going to find its way into my iPhone app in the near future as a result.

So I'd say it's a net win.

I agree. It's a shame. TBH If I were a woman, I'd likely create a male online persona just so I could compete on a level playing field without the silly reverse sexism and condescending "oh wow! You're a woman, well in that case this is even more impressive then! Well done you."

The problem is, often online if a woman steps into a geeky world, their comment/post/whatever is voted up into the stratosphere, by probably well meaning men who want to prove they're not sexist.

Judge stories/posts/comments on their merit. Not the identity of the author.

Why complain about it? She can't control whether others give her attention. I respect your comment, but one thing is a little . . . off. How would you like if someone pointed to your most prominent project to date and said, "that was probably his peak"?

On the actual article - I would've found this interesting regardless of who wrote it (even though, yes, if it hadn't been by her I might not have seen it)

> She can't control whether others give her attention.

He did say "I just can't stand that people post the most minute things she does", which is a complaint aimed at HN (or other sites') posters, not at her.

I'd say the article isn't without interest, but I agree with the commenter that it's not really HN material: it's on a very specific programming problem, and it's not something that'll make you think or gain new insight. Compare to the Knuth submission. It'd rather call it 'stackoverflow answer' material.

Yes, I may have a geek crush on her, but that doesn't matter. I read her stuff because she's smart and has built some good things in the past. You can't go wrong reading what smart people have to say.

You could ignore it, just like you ignore dozens of other stories every day. You could flag it if you think it's inappropriate for Hacker News. You could write a blog post about the problem you see and submit it. You could stop reading the offending sites. You could develop a CulverBlock browser extension and share it with like-minded people.

Or you could complain.

Thanks for saying what others don't have the balls to say.

Tactlessness ≠ balls.

I would bet it's marketing fluff for Plancast written in her contract or they recently requested her to do a blog post.

Sharp .... maybe?

A lot of the comments seem to be pushing Titanium Mobile or other schemes to avoid dealing with the nitty-gritty details of Obj-C. Does anyone have any comment on that? I'm a couple weeks into learning iPhone development, coming from a (mostly) LAMP background, and I'm really enjoying the new direction. I tend to view things like Phonegap and Titanium with skepticism, as it seems like a way to avoid learning hard stuff, and you'd end up giving up a lot of control, performance, and flexibility, but is this the case?

Yes, you do end up giving up a lot of control, performance and flexibility, but a lot of applications don't require it. Titanium has the ability to code modules in Objective-C for those that do, but this might be more complicated than just writing the entire application in Objective-C.

Please, this is a very decent blog post. For those quoting the "HN standards", I see poorer articles than this every single day.

Agreed. I'm just about to build an iPhone app and am bookmarking little snippets like this all over the web. She mentioned a couple of things I hadn't even thought about yet. I know that she's gotten crap in the past, but from what I've seen she is an entrepreneurial programmer who may not have the highest technical ability but makes up for it with her ability to communicate and with her contributions to a variety of projects.

The people who complained about this post making the front page because the author also happens to be a cute blonde (let's show some spine if we're going to insult somebody's intelligence, boys) just come off as bitter know-it-alls. Go get some sun.

Feels strange, and frankly bitter, for folks to take her apart like this. If you don't like the story just skip it.

So many people aren't even talking about the content. It's a glimpse into iPhone development which is an interesting alternate universe for me. I don't think she was going for a Pulitzer.

I think we need to celebrate the fact that there are women in software and technology. Look at how Kathy Sierra was attacked. Men do not get abused like this. It is a very demographically skewed business and that just seems wrong to me.

For sure, but they usually disappear quicker than this one. Having worked around some of what the glitterati of SF, there's no question that they're generally decent people. But when they are exalted above other equally capable people, they invite being torn down.

The fact that Leah is an attractive young woman just makes the whole celebrity thing even more complex. She's a reasonably good programmer, as far as I can tell (which elevates her above some completely clueless and much more successful people in the same circle). Can't really say much beyond that.

Also, I really like the typography.

Hear, hear.

I held my tongue on this earlier today thinking it would simply go away, but no more.

Bottom line #1: The content of this article is not technically newsworthy by HN norms.

Bottom line #2: If you're a photogenic & telegenic young woman software developer in Silcon Valley and you're also sufficiently socially charming, creative, or just plain lucky enough to fall in with the "right crowd" at the "right time" you can get spades of press far easier than any male or any non-photogenic female.

Remember Kim Polese? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Polese ('nuff said)

I can't cite the study offhand (I believe it was published in Nature in '05), but physical looks are a large multiplier (and and even larger divider) in young women's careers in almost all fields (there's an XKCD for this somewhere too). The effect dampens sharply later in life. As society has become more mediated, I'm sure that effect has only grown.

Looks sell, but that sales job must be followed through with commitment and execution. Judging from afar (Pownce's infamous Python eval() hole aside), I've not seen her lacking in either.

"Easy" fame and press is a double-edged sword. She's then expected to live-up to her "billing" and I doubt anyone is quite prepared for such a sudden burst of notoriety and the implicit expectations which come as part of fame's "package deal". At least by being a developer, her contributions can be more objectively judged. I suspect she takes great comfort in that.

I also think even by Valley Standards she's bounced from one company (and one relationship) to the next with alarming frequency. The fact that I even KNOW those few details of her personal life is evidence of our society's double-standard for women.

I can't think of a single other 'famous' developer who's personal life I know about other than Guido, but that's because he and his family used to live near us in Virginia.

I suspect Leah had few options for advancement at SixApart and simply had to "ride-out her earn-out" per Pownce's acquisition agreement.

I also suspect one of the implicit assumptions with her arrangement at Plancast was press-related (again simply leveraging fame as many "advisorships" in Valley companies end up being).

Nevertheless, I'm sure she takes a good deal of comfort from the fact that, at the end of the day, she's now a developer with a deliverable exploring a fresh new non-Django-related API and platform.

If she had wanted to be purely a "face" she likely would've stayed at CNET (err..Webshots) or moved to a more media-centric role.

I also suspect she's already seen the darker side of Silicon Valley and has little wish to return to those salad days. Let her build. Let her be.

You need to read the HN guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If you're a photogenic & telegenic young woman software developer in Silcon Valley and you're also sufficiently socially charming, creative, or just plain lucky enough to fall in with the "right crowd" at the "right time" you can get spades of press far easier than any male or any non-photogenic female.

Even if true (cough.. iJustine.. cough..) that's just "how life is" and complaining about it doesn't change human psychology. Like magpies, people are attracted to shiny things - you just gotta make yourself more shiny.

Did you read the full post?

This was not a "complaint". I was trying to sum up the 2 key points of the discussion and defend Ms. Culver's excess press via sociology in both the historic (e.g. Ms. Polese) and current context of the Silicon Valley press ecosystem. I also did my best (clearly poorly) to give some defense of her efforts.

This sort of thing gets highlighted on HN, and having modern studies to quantify the effects is useful, but one need look little further then Helen of Troy.

Nothing new under the sun here.

Who's iJustine? ;-)

Honestly? You sounds a little bitter.

Wow. I can't believe the controversy here. Reading some of the comments, it seems people are actually jealous of her renown.

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