From Non-Technical Junior High Teacher to iOS Developer | Hacker News Reader

From Non-Technical Junior High Teacher to iOS Developer

calebhicks.com

48 pointscalebhicks34 comments

I'm a full time iOS dev that taught myself. I spent a ton of time working through my struggles via StackOverflow and piece working online tutorials.

Very cool to see what you were able to build in only 12 weeks.

Why did you choose this, instead of learning yourself. Didn't you still have to do all the work to learn even with the program?

Of course. No one's going to learn a thing by just showing up and listening to an instructor. Whether that's an iOS Dev Bootcamp or Physiology.

I put in hundreds of hours beyond regular class time. And yes, definitely working through struggles on StackOverflow and online tutorials.

I chose this because, for me, it's a lot easier to sit back and watch TV or play around without the financial, time, and personal commitment of signing up for a class. I had somewhere to be. My wife and kids knew I had somewhere to be. So it was a full family commitment that made it work.

I know the point of this post is to show how a non-technical person learned to code enough to build iphone apps in 12 weeks, but I'm really, really excited about "Wired In." Well done.

Thanks Austen. I'm excited to be working on it.

I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

Edit: being down voted because of an opinion?

Hey, I want to middle school with Caleb!

On a more related note: It's exciting to see others realize how simple and painless Apple has made iOS dev. It still takes logical chops and a keen eye to make something worthwhile, but the bridge between non-developer and developer is getting shorter and shorter.

The new iOS 8 kits will shorten that gap even more.

Still, as a developer myself with some successful projects behind me, I'm a student of thought that the marketplace is becoming so saturated it will only be very high-caliber apps that survive. Or, I guess, developers who can stick out the rough times as well as the good ones. How new developers fit into that landscape is still uncertain.

As I haven't done any Android development, can anyone shed light on how similar the two processes are (iOS dev vs. Android)?

"I'm a student of thought that the marketplace is becoming so saturated it will only be very high-caliber apps that survive"

I may be bucking the 'everything will be mobile first/mobile only' mindset, but I see the 'successful' apps as those that fit in a larger ecosystem of functionality. For many users, the primary/only point of contact with a system may be the mobile app, but there will be other endpoints of the system with more traditional web interfaces or even other endpoints which will provide other value to other parties.

Yes, the instagrams and yo and such are 'successful', but ultimately, they tend to prove the exception to the rule, I think. Outside of gaming, I'd expect most apps to have other functionality that can be processed and accessed with in other ways beyond solely a mobile interface.

To that end, the mobile app experience doesn't necessarily have to be 'high-caliber' over and above all the other competition, as long as the rest of the supporting functionality provides enough value.

I may entirely wrong though...

I think you are exactly right. The indie devs speaking out are largely Game developers.

The funny thing about the Unread story is that if he keeps on releasing new paid versions (like Tweetie 2 or Tweetbot 2) and then charges for them, he'll just have that much larger of a base to launch on, and will make more money.

I believe it's not just about the caliber of apps, it's about the caliber of business that releases the apps. They need to consider marketing, pricing, launch strategies, and app store optimization. They need to maintain a relationship with their customers, and constantly ask what the customer wants. There is a lot more to a mobile company than the app, and I think the best companies (and their apps) are the ones that will survive.

I'm intrigued by your belief that simply releasing new paid versions of an app leads to more profit. Do you have any evidence that such an approach works?

It's a common method for indie Mac developers. Look at anything Panic does, or even someone like Daniel Jalkut with Mars Edit.

I just remembered that Tower is releasing a V2 now as well.

I wish I had numbers on the effect of those V2 and V3 and even V4 releases.

I love what Ben Thompson at Stratechery wrote on this.

Pleco: Building a Business, Not an App http://stratechery.com/2014/pleco-building-business-just-app...

I don't think it's about the supporting functionality. The caliber your app must be is a function of competition and commoditization.

Just like in the old desktop-PC software days, if you solve a problem important to your customers, and you're the only one around doing it, your software can be as bad and low quality as you want. You're the only game in town for people who need this particular problem solved.

If you however are providing a commodity product in a market filled with competitors, the "quality" of your app (in all the ways we measure quality: stability, responsiveness, design, aesthetics) matters a great deal.

So yeah, if you can own a niche you can get away with some pretty low-caliber development (see: Grubhub's app), but this tends to be temporary. Profitable niches find competitors quickly (see: Seamless, whose mobile app makes Grubhub's look like a child's crayon drawings, and who in the end won and bought Grubhub).

Hey hey Tanner. Long time no talk. I've seen some of the stuff you've been putting out lately, great stuff.

Apple has definitely made great tools in helping newbies learn. There's still room to improve, and iOS 8 tools are a huge help.

I agree with you. The iOS market is maturing. It's no longer a gold-rush of simple one-off apps. The quality needs to be there. So whether that means putting in years as an indie, or working in teams to build high-quality stuff faster, that's what it's going to require to be successful now.

It's really awesome how many people are able to pick up the tools to learn app development. The fact that people of all ages can have an idea and easily pick up the tools to build it is astonishing given the state cell phones were in just 8 years ago.

While Apple has built such easy to use tools that anyone can build apps, the app store has been turning into a quagmire of crap. I really hope the structure of App stores go through a dramatic change soon.

As I haven't done any Android development, can anyone shed light on how similar the two processes are (iOS dev vs. Android)?

For the typical mobile app, which is really just a few listviews pulling data and images from some kind of web service, Android is significantly easier, IMO. Particularly now that Apple is pushing responsive design and the misery that is auto layout. Java is also easier to deal with than Objective-C. Swift may tip the balance back in Apple's favor but it's not really ready for prime time yet.

However, for anything that really has to push the hardware or interact in an intimate way with the camera or GPU or audio, iOS has much more mature and robust APIs for this and, of course, much less hardware fragmentation.

So essentially it depends a lot on what kind of app you're trying to write.

Caleb did a great job in the iOS class. Super impressed with what he's built and how far he's come.

Thank you for addressing the value of individualized learning and for assessing your experience based on the knowledge you acquired as opposed to your employability.

For every person that learns something on their own, there are many more that pay for courses, tutors, and even private coaching, due to some of the reasons you mentioned. I don't understand why programming is any different.

After reading those recent financial/earnings from iOS game developers on HN, I'd be very wary of dropping 4,500$ for a 12 week course.

Being an indie game developer is very different from being a contract iOS developer. I can't imagine a full-time iOS developer being paid less than a Jr. High teacher + $4,500. I'm looking for one now, albeit with a little more experience than Caleb, and could very well end up paying six figures (in Utah).

Exactly. THAT is a door opened to you once you learn to write iOS applications.

It's crazy to me to think that a passive $45,000 from an iOS app isn't a reason to invest $4500 on a 12 week course. But whatever you say.

Also, a senior iOS developer can make anywhere from $90-150k in even a low paying market like Utah. I don't even know what the market is in places like New York and California.

Needless to say, what you get for your $4500 is a lot more than just indie game revenue. It's a life changing experience to learn to write iOS apps.

I read all of those same posts. Definitely concerning news for indie developers.

But the reality is that even junior developers are making very good money working contract or full-time.

$4500 is less than a semester of required classes at University. And it was a good way to dive in.

Mobile development is alive and well, it's just that the real successes are frontends to some service (see: Facebook, Grubhub, Uber, etc). Directly monetizing from app sales is mostly dead.

The demand for iOS devs right now is intense. A senior-level iOS dev can command ~$200K or more in the NYC area right now, I imagine the Bay Area to be similar.

Writing an app and selling it on the app store for ${LUDICROUS_SUM} has been a myth for a long time now, but you can still make your $4500 back very, very easily.

Does anybody have a recommendation of a good way to learn the same material for someone who's motivated but unemployed and dead broke?

Hey, I've been learning iOS dev on my own since the beginning of the year, try these:

-Stanford's Developing iOS Apps Course (free on iTunes U)

-developer.apple.com (unpaid account), gives you access to plenty of code examples to learn from and programming guides

-check out raywenderlich.com, objc.io, nshipster.com to name a few

-stackoverflow

-youtube(!)

-and if you can gather a few bucks, I'd recommend Big Nerd Ranch guide for Objective-C and the iOS programming version too

-IRC

Good luck!

Edit: formatting

Great list! Thanks!

The Big Nerd Ranch books are fantastic. Definitely check them out. I know they'll get something out for Swift sometime soon, but the iOS programming one would be a great foundation even with Objective-C as the sample code.

Some of the bootcamps will do financing. I'm against financing things that depreciate, but if you can get a decent job out of, it's not a terrible option.

Are you planning on moving out of teaching into development?

Great question. I really love what I do at the junior high. I teach business and teen entrepreneurship. I love going into work in the morning.

But I loved my experience this summer. I love the thrill of writing, building, and seeing my code work. The creator's high.

My current plan is to take a year off from teaching next year and pursue an entry-level development job with a good local company. I'm only 27, so while I'm not sure development is the full-time career path I want to take, I definitely want to try it out. In the end, it will boil down to whether I enjoy waking up and going to work as much as I do now.

DevMountain has produced some great talent from what I've seen.

"non-technical".

I think I addressed this in the post itself.

>So to say I’m entirely non-technical may be unfair. It just depends on the context. Neighborhood barbecue? Technical. Startup Weekend? Non-technical.

Where does the HN crowd fit on that spectrum? My guess is most people here would still consider me non-technical, even with what I've built so far.

I think you over estimate what HN expects from you to be technical. You're technical now, no question about it.

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