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Speaking at PDX Code Camp - iPhone Development from an Ex-Softie

The final schedule hasn't been posted yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm speaking at Portland Code Camp this year. The "this year" part is probably obvious. I'm clearly not going to speak at last year's Portland Code Camp, and next year's is far enough away (probably sometime next year) that it's a bit soon to be talking about it.

I haven't given a talk in years. The last "real" talk I gave was in 2006. Or 2007. Or 2006. Or both. The last "real" talk I gave was in 2006 and 2007. After that, I think I gave a couple internal (at Microsoft) presentations that were meant to communicate things or something.

Maybe I should've written all this down somewhere. Maybe I did, and I just don't remember. Maybe I should've made a note of that.

Maybe I should stop trying to figure it out. I clearly have no idea where I've been or what I've been doing for the past three years.

But I can state with the utmost confidence that I think I might possibly be speaking at Portland Code Camp 2009 (perhaps). It'll prolly come down to interest in the session. Right now there are 59 people who've ticked a little box that means, "HELL, YEAH, I WANT TO ATTEND THIS SESSION. OH, HEEEEEELL YEAH." Those 59 "HELL, YEAH"s put it up there among the top few, so it's prolly gonna happen. You could help by registering for Code Camp (if you plan to attend and haven't registered yet), stopping by the session list, scrolling down to my session (or doing an in-page search for "rory"), make sure you're signed in (that's hardcore important - gotsta be signed in), and then tick the "HELL, YEAH, I WANT TO ATTEND THIS SESSION. OH, HEEEEEELL YEAH," box. Note that, for some reason, the caption for the box is simply "Interested:". Tick that box (for my presentation, d0ofis), and know that you've done your duty in the Army of Neopoleon. Congratulations, Private Whateveryournameis.

I'm also trying to draw people in through my speaker's profile. Rather than talking about, I don't know, why I'm qualified to give the talk, I use the valuable space to tell you a little about my personal life and an experience I had at Fred Meyer recently that pissed me off.

So I think that's gonna help. Big time. HELL, YEAH.

The session you're rigging the Code Camp ballot box for is on iPhone development. Not on making iPhones themselves. That's a class that's delivered to factories full of shoeless Malaysian children. They're already very good at what they do. Plus, if we all learned how to build iPhones, we'd put those poor kids out of work, and then what would they do?

Yeah. You're right. They'd probably work at the Nike factory just down past the plutonium factory across the mud-road from the jungle swamp they live in.

Earth is a weird place in 2009.

To clarify, then, my session (if it happens) is going to be about developing software for iPhones. That way nobody gets put out of business. Except you when your job gets offshored to shoeless Malaysian children who're tired of making iPhones.

Sorry. I'm just kidding. I don't want to freak you out. No.

Your job is actually getting shipped to China.

Ha ha! Ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha ha!

No. I'm kidding.

It's getting shipped to India. Then the Indians are going to "near-shore" it to China. From there, a Chinese employee will be given your Social Security number (you shouldn't have subscribed to that funny-cat-pictures mailing list), assume your identity, travel to the US, come to your home, put on your bathrobe, and become you. The hourly rate he can get here is far higher than what he can command back home.

To balance things out and get you out of the way, you will then be put in a crate and shipped to Malaysia where you will become a shoeless child working at the iPhone factory.

So, you will be learning how to build iPhones. Just not in the way you've always dreamed.

And what makes all this possible?

Computers!

Which I'll maybe be discussing at this year's Portland Code Camp.

Should my session be chosen, and should you have some interest in attending, here's what to expect:

  • You don't need an iPhone. If you want to develop for the iPhone, you need a Mac, but you don't need the phone itself. There's a simulator (that's not a typo - it's a simulator - not an emulator - you might get it confused once or twice, but it quickly tattoos the inside of your brain with knowledge of its unique horror and you'll never misrecognize it again).
  • The world's most fastest introduction to Objective-C in the universe. Objective-C is the language you will use to develop for the iPhone. It's your only officially sanctioned option. In that, it's not an option. I'll admit right now that "option" was the wrong word. Objective-C is compulsory, and you'll be learning it whether you want to or not. If you're too chicken, then maybe you should attend a session on how to avoid challenges and continue being a sissy. Yeah. I said that. Yeah.
  • What you'll need to make the iPhone programs. Just as you'll learn the ins and outs (if I have time - it might be the ins or the outs, though I'll try for both) of a new language (by "new" I mean a language that left the Nerd Womb suckling a can of New Coke while watching Max Headroom), you're also going to learn new tools (regarding use of the word "new": see previous parenthetical aside). I'm going to show you where Apple asks for your personal information in exchange for access to the dev tools.
  • An overview of the most common types of iPhone apps. You might not realize it - either because you're unobservant or because you don't own an iPhone - but there are only a few fundamental "types" of iPhone app. I'm talking about structure here. As we've seen with apps like iFart, you can make any kind of app you want, including really stupid, disgusting, embarrassing, stupid, awful, stupid apps. Stupid awful apps that somehow held the top spot in the iTunes App Store for weeks. Stupid awful apps that were purchased by people like you, thereby solidifying their place in the iTunes App Store hall of fame. If the App Store had a hall of fame. It doesn't. But if it did, you can bet iFart would be in there. I'm not kidding. I wish I were. Oh, god, I wish I were.
  • How to slap an app together and then run it in the simulator. This includes the most effective way to swear at the simulator when it tries to ruin your life. I might even share some secret tips on how not to do things that will upset the simulator. And how to detect the simulator's lies. Yes - the simulator lies. It will lie to you. Together, we'll look at how to create an iPhone simulator polygraph.
  • I'm going to talk about the process of taking your app from the simulator to a device, and then from a device to the App Store. If you're used to Windows Mobile development, then this'll be a real eye-opener for you. Apple made these things about as convenient as surrounding your home with a moat of sulphuric acid populated with sulphuric acid-resistant crocodiles that have the ability to squirt sulphuric acid out of their eyeballs at you and blind you with it and then eat you. The crocodiles have been trained to laugh at you and film the whole thing and then put it up on YouTube where the videos get millions of views. Also, the crocodiles wrote iFart. That's where they get their funding.
  • Sprinkled throughout, I'm going to comment on things I don't know about, but I'm going to do it with an air of authority that you will find impossible to resist. You'll leave with a bunch of new "facts" that are really just things I made up on the spot to try and make myself look smart. Or things I make up in response to questions I don't know the answers to. I'll even do this for yes/no questions, so look out.
  • There will inevitably be something said about other platforms - Windows Mobile, Android, blah blah blah - I'll do everything I can to offer my own biased point of view on these matters. If there's time, maybe we can also argue about Commodores vs. TRS-80s vs. the Atari ST vs. the Amiga vs. Linux vs. Unix vs. Republicans vs. Democrats vs. Apples vs. Oranges vs. Anything-else-we-can-have-pointless-religious-battles-about. It's gonna be SOOOOOOOOO fun.

If you're the rare sort of person who likes to show up to these things prepared, then I strongly recommend you go read as much of Apple's Introduction to Objective-C as you can. It's a (sorta) short, (sorta) easy read, and it'll give you a lot of (sorta) useful context. I advance this recommendation more strongly if you see learning as a competition. It's your best chance at being the person in the room who knows more about the subject than the presenter. You'll be able to interrupt to say things like, "But isn't it truuuuue.... that the best practice for borking the thingy is to twaddle the widget in a separate process?" to which I'll respond, "I guess so. I don't really know what I'm talking about." Then you can sit back, satisfied that you've made me look like an idiot. Know this, though: I don't care. I've given a lot of talks. I've dealt with people like you. Also, I'm sleeping with your wife, so I kinda guess the last laugh's on you, jackass.

It should be fun for everybody.

Hope to see you there!

Published Monday, May 25, 2009 12:13 AM by Rory

Filed Under: , ,

Comments

 

Koogle said:

If I lived anywhere near Portland I'd attend for sure Rory!

even the actual session description has got be the most interesting listed and funny...

-http://portlandcodecamp.org/session.aspx?sid=47b1503e-612b-4230-8d82-21465e421f62

"It would be unfortunate if you missed the awesomest presentation in the universe"

yep :(
May 25, 2009 6:25 PM
 

Cliff said:

If I were anywhere near Portland you can bet I'd be the only one in the room that knew more about the topic than the only other guy that knew about the topic than the presenter. After all, everybody knows that the process cannot be twaddled in a separate process since the phone only supports one process for an app! Soooo your best bet at borking the thingy is to use a THREAD! That's right I said thread! But oh ho-ho! If you want to use threads you're better off investigating the NSRunLoop architecture which itself was inspired by CocoaTouch's Carbon underpinnings... These under pinnings saw their root in the original works by NeXtStep... by the way did you know that NeXtStep was originally... wait you said something else important.

Oh yeah, learning is a competition so you definitely gotz tuh show up prepared! That reminds me, you was s'posed to holla back about things like KDE/Konqueror and your predictions on WebKit... which were spot on. Did you see the benchmarks on Safari4? For all of you here that don't know, my man made a predictions almost 2 years ago on my blog about the iPhone changing the game for the internet bringing more importance to WebKit the engine behind Safari and my favorite toy of all time Konqueror.

Sincerely,
The Guy trying to sound smarter/more-up-to-speed/more-JohnBlazed than the other guy that just got his wife nailed by this guy
May 25, 2009 7:23 PM
 

Cliff said:

Yeah, it was over two years ago.
http://codeforfun.wordpress.com/2007/02/26/i-cant-kopete-with-windows/
Back then we was all talking KHTML this, and Gecko that. I remember talk in KDE land about native Gecko support which I was really excited about because I thought I'd finally get the homogenous desktop integration of KDE with the ability to frequent more than 20% of the web.
May 25, 2009 7:32 PM
 

peter said:

I'd love to be there just to be able to see some original physics
it'd ptobably be better than those dryed-up pizza's we had at the 2005 din-din
May 25, 2009 8:11 PM
 

Erwin Blonk said:

Rory is on speaking terms with the world again.
May 26, 2009 1:34 AM
 

Lloyd said:

I wanna live in the USA :(

Typical: I'm getting an iPhone when my 'berry contract runs out, and pretty soon I'm getting a Mac Mini for Photoshop stuff and in preperation for the iPhone arriving

(a) so I don't have to bastardize windows with iTunes *gasp*
(b) so I can write apps for it

so I'm pretty sure this talk would've been perfick'. Pity.

Ah well, yet another awesome Neopoleon activity I can't partake in due to an effing huge pond :*(
May 26, 2009 5:05 AM
 

Loosely Coupled Human Code Factory said:

Rory Blythe
May 26, 2009 1:30 PM
 

Adron said:

Hey Lloyd, if you go online and get one of those airplane tix, you could hope and skip over that big ass pond and be here in time for the sessions!

:p
May 26, 2009 1:41 PM
 

ChrisA said:

This talk rory is giving just shows that Microsoft and all of its development efforts are dead.  
May 26, 2009 3:02 PM
 

Rory said:

Koogle -

"If I lived anywhere near Portland I'd attend for sure Rory!"

I'm going to see if they'll let us make a video of it so we can post it for people who didn't get to go... it's not as much fun as getting to interact in person, but it's still something :)
May 26, 2009 6:32 PM
 

Astrid said:

I'm not a software developer, but even *I* would love to see a webcast of this presentation.  Will The Neopoleon Snarkfest of iPhone Destiny be televised?
May 26, 2009 6:37 PM
 

Rory said:

Cliff -

"After all, everybody knows that the process cannot be twaddled in a separate process since the phone only supports one process for an app! Soooo your best bet at borking the thingy is to use a THREAD! That's right I said thread!"

Yeah - when I wrote that thing about the process, I heckled myself about it.

One of those not-so-popular aspects of iPhone development (but one I'm down with in exchange for battery life, stability, etc.).

"But oh ho-ho! If you want to use threads you're better off investigating the NSRunLoop architecture which itself was inspired by CocoaTouch's Carbon underpinnings... These under pinnings saw their root in the original works by NeXtStep... by the way did you know that NeXtStep was originally... wait you said something else important."

It's not that bad, though... convenience methods like performSelectorInBackground make it uber simple to, you know, get something done in the background :)

And, yes - OS X's origin - back before XCode, I went through a phase where I subjected myself to Project Builder. People (rightly) complain about the wonkiness of using XCode and Interface Builder, but it's so much better than how things were just a few years ago.

I think the day I walked away from OS X development (for a few years) was the day I saw screenshots of the original NeXT bits - saw how astonishingly *little* things had changed - and went right back to Java. Messed with RealBasic, too, but never came to accept it. I tried. And tried again. But never could.

Seeing OpenStep didn't help, either. It made me feel like I was driving that mid-80s Cadillac that was just a duddied-up Chevy Cavalier. I forget the model, but if you thought you were driving a luxury vehicle... you were in for disappointment.

Project Builder was the same old stuff, but with Aqua prettiness.

Yes. I know about this stuff's history.

Unfortunately.

"That reminds me, you was s'posed to holla back about things like KDE/Konqueror and your predictions on WebKit... which were spot on. Did you see the benchmarks on Safari4? For all of you here that don't know, my man made a predictions almost 2 years ago on my blog about the iPhone changing the game for the internet bringing more importance to WebKit the engine behind Safari and my favorite toy of all time Konqueror."

I was?

I did?
May 26, 2009 9:41 PM
 

Rory said:

Cliff -

"Yeah, it was over two years ago."

That was weird to read. Went back to March of 2007 in my head... that was a baaaaaaaaad month in a baaaaaaaaaad year.

Wow.

So weird.

I guess I'm so used to being online (going back to the days when I had a BBS) that I forget how bizarre it is to conduct aspects of your social life in a medium that preserves those conversations perfectly, and in a way that makes it relatively easy for you to track those conversations down.

Where else does that happen?

So weird.

Sorry - having a "whoah" moment here :)
May 26, 2009 9:48 PM
 

Rory said:

Lloyd -

"Ah well, yet another awesome Neopoleon activity I can't partake in due to an effing huge pond :*("

That makes me wonder how long it's going to be before I get to go back to the UK.

That, in turn, reminds me how long it's been since I've left the country.

And that sorta freaks me out.

So I guess we're even :)
May 26, 2009 9:57 PM
 

Rory said:

ChrisA -

"This talk rory is giving just shows that Microsoft and all of its development efforts are dead."

I wouldn't say that at all.

I miss .Net.

I'm having fun with Objective-C and Cocoa, and the iPhone is a fun platform, but MS still, in my opinion, produces the best dev tools.

The place Microsoft has been biffing it up over the years is in treating *every* platform like the desktop.

The internet? It's just a really big desktop we're all sharing, so nobody's going to mind that a lot of the Live stuff is totally buggy in Safari.

The phone? It's just a really small desktop. We don't need to give people a convenient, easy way to find, download, and install software on their devices...

Apple's "killer feature" is the App Store. Not the dev tools - not even the iPhone. As we've seen over the years, people are quite happy using totally inferior hardware (remember the original Blackberry? and how crappy Palms were compared to PocketPCs running what would eventually become Windows Mobile?).

Back when Palm devs were trying to figure out how to allocate enough memory to create a few strings, Microsoft had eVC++ and eVB and quickly followed up with the .NetCF.

Microsoft was years ahead of the competition when it came to dev tools.

They provided the easiest way to write mobile apps.

They just never made it easy on users to get those apps. They did the usual Microsoft thing and relied on third parties to take care of that for them, and the solutions *sucked*. 'Course, Microsoft probably would've gotten sued by every nation on the planet if they tried to do what Apple's doing with the App Store, so maybe it's not such a bad thing.

But the dev tools weren't the problem, and my giving a talk on iPhone development isn't a statement about Microsoft.
May 26, 2009 10:11 PM
 

Rory said:

Astrid -

"I'm not a software developer, but even *I* would love to see a webcast of this presentation.  Will The Neopoleon Snarkfest of iPhone Destiny be televised?"

If they let me (and I don't see why they wouldn't), I'm going to record it and upload it to the worldwide internet. With moving pitchers and everything.

We'll see... we'll see...

We'll see...

(We'll see...)
May 26, 2009 10:14 PM
 

Lloyd said:

@Adron I totally would, but I've got zero cash at the moment, and my mum wouldn't let me go. Fail.
May 26, 2009 11:17 PM
 

Lloyd said:

Woops, forgot to refresh so I missed a load of posts.

@Rory next time you're planning to come to the UK, let me know because I'll drop everything and hop on a train/whatever :)
May 26, 2009 11:18 PM
 

Cliff said:

Rory,

"I was?

I did?"

You were, didn't happen. S'all good, wasn't really s'posed to happen. We was all yapping back then, challenges, big ambitions, larger than life dreams all kindz of nonsense. There was the Facebook venture that didn't happen, a web cast, and somewhere a sandwich begging to be eaten. I think I promised (myself) that I'd do or post something with an animation that's still floating around between hard drives half finished. Yes 2007 was crazy indeed...

"And, yes - OS X's origin - back before XCode, I went through a phase..."

That's real funny! It reminds me of that rambling rant you left on my blog. Because I was only half serious about the Cocoa/Carbon/NeXtStep stuff and you knew I was half joking yet you respond with something twice as far off topic. I don't pretend to know anything about iPhone development and heritage. Well I do pretend but lets pretend that it was just make believe cause I don't really know how much of those half-invented half rememberized facts holds up. BTW, RealBasic is kinda nice, if all your needs are real basic.
May 27, 2009 6:49 AM
 

Rory said:

Lloyd -

"@Rory next time you're planning to come to the UK, let me know because I'll drop everything and hop on a train/whatever :)"

Dude... that's implicit :)

There's no way I'd head out there without contacting my limey friends and organizing something.

And I'm interested in the "hop on a train/whatever" part. What exactly is a "whatever" in this case?

Horse?

Giant tortoise?

Hot air balloon?

If you find a way to combine those three, I'll fly out *just* to see it.
May 27, 2009 12:12 PM
 

Rory said:

Cliff -

"You were, didn't happen. S'all good, wasn't really s'posed to happen. We was all yapping back then, challenges, big ambitions, larger than life dreams all kindz of nonsense. There was the Facebook venture that didn't happen, a web cast, and somewhere a sandwich begging to be eaten. I think I promised (myself) that I'd do or post something with an animation that's still floating around between hard drives half finished. Yes 2007 was crazy indeed..."

Ok. It's coming back to me.

Yeah. I still haven't posted the last chapter of my creation story. I have this weird mental block about it. I'd explain, but I'd have to go into some very personal stuff (not directly related to the story - just stuff that has affected some other stuff that indirectly affects things like my willingness to share my thoughts with people).

Regarding thiscasts and thosecasts... it's part of my job now to get back into that stuff, so it's definitely going to start happening. We're in crunch mode right now and I'm finishing up a couple projects that need to get out the door, but Code Camp is the beginning of my reintroduction to geek community activities.

It's gonna be good. I'm working with some freaky amazing people. I know people say that, but it's true. These guys are really, really, *really* good at what they do. I want to reenter my role as the loudmouthed jerk who gets people like them the attention they deserve (and also trying to get them to share their expertise with people - I've learned a ton from working here).

"That's real funny! It reminds me of that rambling rant you left on my blog. Because I was only half serious about the Cocoa/Carbon/NeXtStep stuff and you knew I was half joking yet you respond with something twice as far off topic. I don't pretend to know anything about iPhone development and heritage. Well I do pretend but lets pretend that it was just make believe cause I don't really know how much of those half-invented half rememberized facts holds up. BTW, RealBasic is kinda nice, if all your needs are real basic."

Well, I have a habit of writing "rambling rantSleep [S]" here and elsewhere :)

I remember having written a few small books in your comments section.

That's what happens when somebody says something that gets me thinking. I can't shut up. I have to tell someone.

It hasn't been that way this year. Kind of the opposite. But I'm making progress - my life is normaler all the time. And as I do stuff like Code Camp, it's get even more normaler.

Eventually I'll be back to being unable to shut up. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know :)
May 27, 2009 12:19 PM
 

Mike said:

Puh-lease.  No contest.  The Commodore 64 totally kicks the TRS-80's ass.  Good luck with your cassette tape "drive", you TRS-80 lusers.
May 27, 2009 1:20 PM
 

Lloyd said:

Giant tortoise is fuelled in the garage. Also fuelled is a shiny VW Touareg, I hear it's more fuel-efficient than the tortoise though, so I'd probably get to you with that.
May 27, 2009 8:40 PM
 

Adron said:

Hey Rory - we (as in the organizing crew behind Portland Code Camp - this year 09, not 10' or anything, cuz you know, that's way off in next year)...

...would be stoked if you recorded it.  We were trying to get a few cameras together to film as many as possible, but alas, it seems there aren't a lot of them laying around for borrowing.  :(

So ya know, record away, and if you know anyone that would be interested in filming or has a few cameras to film with, get em' to jump on board.
May 27, 2009 10:13 PM
 

Paul Murphy said:

looks like fun!
May 29, 2009 7:01 AM
 

Aristo said:

Hi Rory,

That is my first comment on your blog where I hadn't read the content I comment on before I put a comment.

I had some reflection on "things" some time ago, and I had noticed that we are very similar. Even when we express ourselves different way we have something in common.

I am trying to do something since long time. I try to follow my "idea" but I forget what I was actually trying to do.

I have noticed that is became the way I live my life.

You see, everytime I decide to write to you this kind of shore blog comment I sdtruggle with this leanguage "thing" I have to use to communicate to you.

...maybe we supposed to bring our power together and try again as a one creation?

you see, you are weird but there are people more wired hehe...

I don't know. Try to frink a half of the whisjy bottle and read this again. maybe you will see my message..

Mariusz
May 31, 2009 10:58 AM
 

Chris - Link to my Google IO pictures said:

I was at Google IO, click my link to see my pictures.
Google gave us each a G1 phone and I sold mine for $780 on ebay. I already have a $190 T-Mobile G1 with cupcake, and I have an iPhone, so I did not need another Android phone. Even if I did need one I would have sold it and bought the cheaper T-Mobile one.

As for your conference:
I would fly up there to see you in Portland, but it's on a Tuesday and that's a work day for me. I already took PTO to go to China and to the Google IO conference. I can't take more PTO this month to fly up to Portland. Hopefully your speech will be on youtube?

At any rate, you seem to be bouncing back some what, so I am glad for you.

You probably already know that iPhone will not survive the Android onslaught, and that Cupcake is only the first step in taking over mobile. It's exactly what happened to the IIa-e series when compaq loaded their machines with MSDOS. Except Android is MSDOS and there are no licensing fees.
June 7, 2009 9:36 AM
 

Chris - Ebay link to sold G2 phone said:

Oh, yes, our new CDN service should be ready soon, so I will send you a promo code so you can use it for free if you want. It's pretty freaking awesome. A lot of cash went into this, so hopefully a lot will come out too.

Let me know if you want pics. I can't tell you what the name of it is yet because we are keeping it a secret until it launches. It has nothing to do with my day job of course. Still there is a short list of 20k people that will get promo codes, and I will add you to the list and you can tell us whether it sucks or not.
June 7, 2009 9:39 AM
 

Chris said:

speaking of conferences, the next one I am going to is the Twiistup 6 evening mixer.
It's at the Universal Hilton, 555 Universal Hollywood Drive Universal City, CA.

I was at Twiistup last year, but apparently this year they have expanded the free alcohol mixer party into a 2 day conference with Jason Calacanis as the MC.

Unfortunately it looks like they could only afford to rent the Hilton conference room on week days so most of us will only be there Thursday night for the mixer.

The people who organize these events always rent on week days to save money, never considering that most people can not leave work during the day to attend. At any rate, I'll see some of you there.

Last year at Twiistup 5 I scored a Sun Microsystems shot glass, and a Sun Microsystems branded laser pen.

Looking forward to more posts Rory and maybe that video of your speech on youtube.
June 13, 2009 7:37 PM
 

Charlie Eriksen said:

How did I miss this blog-post?

I heard you on .NET rocks, having no idea you were still alive after you left C9(GO BACK!!!!).

I got myself a mac last year. I figured it would be pretty cool to code for it, but didn't like ObjC at first. So I tried all the ruby implementations and stuff. But they were all half-assed attempts.

So I thought I'd learn ObjC. And as you said on the podcast, being a long-time .NET programmer. We are extremely spoiled!

And with ObjC being quite a bastard child of C, together with smalltalk, Cocoa being extremely verbose and Xcode not being Visual studio, I have yet to reach the point where I have sympathy for my hostage-taker.

I'll get there some day. But when I start crying after a few minutes of being in XCode, I go into visual studio and feel much better.
June 16, 2009 5:06 AM
 

Chris said:

Charlie,

You may just want to use Eclipse as your editor on Mac. I have OSX86 installed for iPhone development, and I find Eclipse much easier.

I actually had MSDN professional for 2 years and never used any of the software or IDE's. Eclipse was always way better because it plugs into everything.
If you try Google App Engine code.google.com/appengine you will see how easy Eclipse can be.

Microsoft is fast becoming Borland + an operating system.

June 16, 2009 7:51 PM
 

Chris - MSDN Pro for $450 said:

I found the above link on Ebay when I was logged in earlier. Microsoft is now practically giving away MSDN professional subscriptions to resellers to resell on Ebay for $450 a year.

MSDN pro used to be $3000 a year. Now they're trying to move them for next to free. The sellers still have full quantities, the seller in the link still has 10. He has not sold 1 MSDN pro subscription @ $450 a year.

This would have never happened in 1998. I think Google App Engine, Android and other emerging technologies have finally started to prevail. Microsoft can't even give it away anymore it seems. Just like Turbo C++ builder.
June 16, 2009 9:18 PM
 

Chris said:

Sorry, that is only one if that seller's links. He had a 10 quantity of them on another auction. He sold one of the 2 he had on that one.

Microsoft software development tools are so far out of whack with what the tech industry here in California is doing it's unreal. I'm sorry, I had to say it. They've really lost touch. That's what happens when you close all your doors and act like a bunch of snobs.
June 16, 2009 9:24 PM
 

Chris said:

I searched Portland code camp 2009 on youtube and got nothing.

One thing that was great about IO 2009 is that all the sessions were immediately put up on youtube.

That's great because you shouldn't repeat yourself. If somebody said something at IO it will now be searchable for years to come. Rory, you may have presented well at Portland code camp and now nobody outside the 400 people that went will ever know.
July 4, 2009 3:34 PM
 

Rory said:

Chris -

Sorry (to you and everyone) - been too busy to post/comment. We've been swamped with bidniss, and it feels like there's never going to be an end to it.

Not that that's a bad thing.

Just... busy :)

Anyway, in response:

"I searched Portland code camp 2009 on youtube and got nothing.

One thing that was great about IO 2009 is that all the sessions were immediately put up on youtube."

Yeah. I brought my camera, but forgot the tripod, so wasn't able to record my session.

It's aright, though, cos the session needed work. It was too long for the hour-and-a-half we got. I've been learning that trying to teach people iPhone development is much different from teaching .Net. With .Net, even if you aren't a .Net coder, chances are you've worked with something pretty similar, so you'll get the concepts and understand the code.

With the iPhone, you've got all the usual weirdness that comes with devices, but also the strange technology behind it. The tutorials I've been putting together are *so* different from what I did in Olden Times for Microsoft. Although I start off with concepts and an introduction to the dev tools/platform, I'm going to have to dedicate a few episodes to teaching ObjC and Cocoa(Touch).

Teaching a language... *that's* hard(er). Especially one that shares elements of syntax with another language that few people know (smalltalk).

So... no big loss on my talk not being online :)

"That's great because you shouldn't repeat yourself. If somebody said something at IO it will now be searchable for years to come. Rory, you may have presented well at Portland code camp and now nobody outside the 400 people that went will ever know."

I agree. That said, I tend to modify a talk every time I give it, having learned from previous sessions what worked/what didn't.

There *will* be stuff online (and soon), but I wouldn't have wanted that first talk to have live on the internets except for purposes of nostalgia.

Speaking of which, it's all kinds of nuts that there are NO videos out there of my talks. Not one - not even for "the record" - *nothing*.

I find that sad. It'd be nice to have even a snippet. That was such a crazy part of my life. As painful as it was at times, it was also something unique for me that I'll probably never get to do again - at least not in the way I did there (almost total freedom *and* a company credit card - that's a pretty good deal).

But stuff is coming.

Stuff is coming...
July 22, 2009 2:46 PM
 

Koogle said:

well stuff is usually good.. good stuff
July 25, 2009 6:09 PM
 

Chris said:

At Google IO there was a lot of talk of creating web apps for the iPhone instead of using the SDK.

There is a popular book out there called "Developing Hybrid Applications for the iPhone"

ISBN: 0321604164

The Google maps team really thought that this is the way to go, because it bypasses the approval process and all the rules and regulations you have to normally adhere to, to get your iPhone app approved. My iPhone is QuickPWNed so I don't have to worry about that, but most people do.

There were of course a lot of sessions about building native Android apps and those were the coolest.

So I bought some audio gear so I could record music again too.

I got:

1 x Tascam FW-1884 DAW workstation. (It's like a mouse for your audio software, a BIG mouse with lots of buttons)

1 x Cakewalk 8.3 producer edition software

1 x Boss DR-880 drum machine and composer

1 x Native Instruments Guitar Rig 2, musicians friend was clearing them out for $209 with the software, pedal board device and free upgrade to GR3.

Then I have my Marshall half stack, Rocktron Voodu valve multi-effects and my neck through BCRich Warlock.

I haven't recorded anything for ages, but I am positive it's easier to use the Guitar Rig pedal board + software, DR-880 and Tascam firewire DAW controller than to get old school materials and mic everything. That's what I had in my last mini-studio and boy was it a pain. Garageband is ok, but it's not convenient. Everything is onscreen and there are no motorized faders.

July 26, 2009 9:53 AM
 

Chris said:

I am of course also looking forward to your iPhone app builder videos. I actually used some tutorials I found on YouTube to start doing iPhone development late last year, but it would be nice to get some niche tips and pointers from you, as you seem to be implementing your code in a real world situation.

July 26, 2009 9:56 AM
 

Chris - My Studio - Click to View Receipts said:

As you can see in the image above. I used a combination of Bing cashback, eBay coupons, and Musicians friend coupons to build my new mini-audio work station for about $1000.

My old 24 track studio was about 10-15k and it did not have half this functionality, and required mic'ing a complete drum set.

I also purchased a M-Audio Axiom 25 keyboard, for intros and such.

I hope to make some MP3s soon as well. Your post inspired me to buy some equipment again and record some tracks. You have to hand it to Microsoft, Bing may not be a good search engine, but at least it give you cashback if you momentarily disable your ad blocking plugin.

It's not Google is it. I do appreciate the cash though.
July 26, 2009 12:14 PM
 

Mike Clark said:

Dude.

"Yeah. I brought my camera, but forgot the tripod, so wasn't able to record my session."

You coulda asked me, I would have been happy to oblige.  I was sitting right there in the front row with my laptop and my Mac-using brother on the cell-phone trying to give useful advice when you were struggling to get your Mac to output to the projector.  I even had my own tripod out in my car!  You forgot to ask the time-honored question: "Is there a doctor in the house?"  Or, cameraman, whatever.

Sheesh.
August 6, 2009 1:02 PM
 

Mike Clark said:

Does the company you work for also make apps for the Palm Pre?
August 6, 2009 1:03 PM
 

Chris - Link to Google campout. said:

Hey Mike,

I wish you had taped it and put it on youtube.

BTW I will be at the Googleplex this weekend for a campout.

Google just sent me a last minute email and apparently they're giving away a lot of stuff just like at IO 09.

I'm not even bothering to bring a tent. They said that they have crash rooms in the email. I would copy and paste some of it, except that it's top secret Google stuff and nobody in their right mind wants to make Google angry.

If they allow cell pics, I will post some pics I snap with my iPhone or Android. I almost want to bring my EOS digital rebel, but I dunno if they allow pics of the event. I may just bring it anyway and see how it goes. I posted those IO 09 pics somewhere on Rory's blog comments recently.

At any rate, Rory, you should come, it should be a good time. You could probably catch a flight tomorrow if you really wanted to go.

I dunno, everything I've experienced that Google put on has been superb, so I really dig Google events. It beats the hell out of Microsoft. Microsoft is so lame now. We won't even consider using their products at work. That's reality. I guess they earned it by being b1tches to everyone.
August 6, 2009 8:35 PM
 

Chris - Google campout link fixed said:

There, I fixed the link, I think.
August 6, 2009 8:40 PM
 

Chris - Google IO 2009 pics said:

I deleted my old Picasa account. So I am reposting my IO 2009 pics, and in the next post I will post my brand new pics from the Google Campout .
August 10, 2009 8:35 PM
 

Chris - Google Campout 2009 Pics from GooglePlex said:

This set of pics is from this past weekend at the Googleplex. It was a lot of fun and I was teamed up with some Europeans and a Yahoo employee.

We had some problems with the AppEngine JDO implementation with the one to many JDO bidirectional mapping and did not complete the ambitious project on time, but we learned a lot about JDO, and had fun.

I spoke to Googlers on the Wave and app engine teams, and found out that our problems were due to some unfixed bugs in their JDO implementation where List<type>s are not stored or pulled out of the GDatabase properly in datastore.

I will post a link to our unfinished work as a Google code SVN repository in a following post. I would post this on my own blog except that I probably shouldn't blog anymore due to my work so I stopped blogging over a year ago.
August 10, 2009 8:43 PM
 

Chris - SVN Repo for Google Camp 09 Project said:

So you can check out the code here. I submitted most of the changes trying to get the proper annotations for JDO to get the one to many bidirectional store and fetch working. Apparently it did not work due to a bug in the implementation so said a Googler that works on AppEngine. Hopefully that bug will be fixed soon.

My own robot and gadget I am building for fun will only use one to one JDO storage, so I will not have hurdles like getting List<type>s to work in the default fetch group and other issues that are still unfixed on the Google end.

You can also get Wave working even if you do not have an account by using the open XMPP implementation with OpenFire, then the using the open Wave extension to XMPP.

I was thinking hacking Wave into Thunderbird directly. The protocol is up and you can read more at waveprotocol.org.

Again, an amazing event by Google. Great food and free beer. Microsoft should be scared.
August 10, 2009 8:59 PM
 

Chris - SVN Repo for Google Camp 09 Project said:

So you can check out the code here. I submitted most of the changes trying to get the proper annotations for JDO to get the one to many bidirectional store and fetch working. Apparently it did not work due to a bug in the implementation so said a Googler that works on AppEngine. Hopefully that bug will be fixed soon.

My own robot and gadget I am building for fun will only use one to one JDO storage, so I will not have hurdles like getting List<type>s to work in the default fetch group and other issues that are still unfixed on the Google end.

You can also get Wave working even if you do not have an account by using the open XMPP implementation with OpenFire, then the using the open Wave extension to XMPP.

I was thinking hacking Wave into Thunderbird directly. The protocol is up and you can read more at waveprotocol.org.

Again, an amazing event by Google. Microsoft should be scared.
August 10, 2009 9:01 PM
 

Chris said:

"Apparently it did not work due to a bug in the implementation"

I am of course referring to the JDO one to many bidirection map implementation with datanucleus on AppEngine, not my implementation. I had tried various things to get around the bug, but they did not work. The Google API would not generate unique storage keys for List<type>s of a parent JDO entity, no matter what annotation I tried, and mapped one to many owned relationships were poorly documented, when you have a root, List<type> member, and each of those JDO mapped  class entitys then have their own List<type> of 3rd tier children and so on.

It's supposed to be automatic in an owned relationship. So if a data object is persistent, you can change any of the leaves on the tree, and it should update the database for all objects effected in the owned relationship. We needed that for this project, and Google has not worked out the bugs on that.

But like I said we had a lot of fun. Great times. I however, prefer working at my own job because of the college dorm type atmosphere at Googleplex, at least for now.
August 10, 2009 9:05 PM
 

Chris said:

"Apparently it did not work due to a bug in the implementation"

I am of course referring to the JDO one to many bidirection map implementation with datanucleus on AppEngine, not my implementation. I had tried various things to get around the bug, but they did not work. The Google API would not generate unique storage keys for List<type>s of a parent JDO entity, no matter what annotation I tried, and mapped one to many owned relationships were poorly documented, when you have a root, List<type> member, and each of those JDO mapped  class entitys then have their own List<type> of 3rd tier children and so on.

It's supposed to be automatic in an owned relationship. So if a data object is persistent, you can change any of the leaves on the tree, and it should update the database for all objects effected in the owned relationship. We needed that for this project, and Google has not worked out the bugs on that.

But like I said we had a lot of fun. Great times. I however, prefer working at my own job because of the college dorm type atmosphere at Googleplex, at least for now.
August 10, 2009 9:07 PM
 

Chris said:

and sorry about the double post earlier. It was a brower timeout.

My bad.... :)
August 10, 2009 9:08 PM
 

George said:

Oh great, is Rory dead again?
August 13, 2009 4:10 PM
 

Chris - new meds pic said:

Hi George, it would seem that way. You can always try to email him.
BTW, My doctor put me on P@ xil this past week, not for 0CD but because I was experiencing panic attacks at work. I am on P@ xil right now and I feel better. I guess the doctor said it can give certain young people suicidal thoughts, but now that I'm taking it I kind of doubt it.

It kind of stops you from getting upset.

At any rate, I hope Rory posts again.

It would seem that my original post was caught by the filter because of me dic@tion name sp @m.

So I am trying again with alternate characters.
August 15, 2009 9:22 AM
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