A first time iPhone developer's tea-filled journey. | Hacker News Reader

A first time iPhone developer's tea-filled journey.

worldoftea.org

49 pointstony58410 comments

It's interesting to hear a first-hand account of the development phase. Of all the things that could cause a snag, you wouldn't think the brewing screen (essentially a fancy "please wait" screen) would be the one. It seems like there would be more pressing issues at hand, but perhaps I am severely over-estimating the complexity and difficulties in developing an iPhone app...

It didn't sound to me like the please-wait screen presented any development difficulty.

Rather, it seems like it presented a design conundrum, to which the developer paid great attention before making a difficult decision to scrap the cellular automata idea that he was in love with.

Right. The hardest part was admitting the design was flawed and getting help to make something better. The technical issues, aside from some memory management bugs early on, could be solved in an evening.

It's such a cool app, but as I've asked the developer before, I wish they would make something similar for coffee.

I guess someone could, but I think there wouldn't be much need for an app on how to make coffee, then there is for tea? Well if someone has a cool concept, send me a message, I could code it up!

Speaking as a denizen of the US, making coffee is more complex than we've been socialized to think in N. America. We've been socialized to accept the mediocre result of stale grounds and water that's too cool. (Which makes for an easier time dealing with UL)

I agree. There are tons of interesting ways to make coffee, not all of which require investing hundreds (or thousands) of dollars in fancy espresso machines: i.e. french press vs. aeropress vs. traditional drip filter vs. gold cone, etc...

Cone drip filter. Grinder. (Get a used burr grinder or a good Krups or Braun rotary is good enough.) Whole bean coffee roasted in the past two weeks from a local roaster. Candy thermometer. Pot of boiling water.

If you actually get fresh beans and figure out exactly how much water and how hot it needs to be, the coffee gets really good.

If it's just a matter of changing the variables, someone please let me know and I'll be glad to make it. From what I understand though, it isn't as straightforward a process of preparation as tea is.

Ironically, in Houston, we have a bunch of first-time iPhone devs showing up to NSCoder night at a tea house:

http://www.tehouseoftea.com/

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