What do you do for a living? - Page 3

NearChaos · 08-29-2009, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nick5454

How do you find the OS inconsistent? I find it much more stable than XP or Vista . But I just started iPhone a while ago.

I'm used to xCode now. It's not so bad. And you can always use VisualSudio since opengl is platform independent. There are a few 3rd party tools that allow you to do it. But I think it's a waste of time.

I do wish Apple had better documentation with examples like MS. The simplest things in MAC have become huge hurdles.

But, another 2 months and I should be at a normal pace.

Memory management in general tends to be inconsistent. I'm trying to remember the exact calls I used (not on Mac now) but one specific example was collecting HTTP data in an NSData and converting it to a string with NSString stringFromData (or something like that). See what happens when you free the NSData and try to use the string. Then check the documentation to see if there's any mention of the crash you're about to get.

Most of the examples I can think of have to do with either memory management or trying to integrate C++ into Objective-C, or using the C library for functionality that's not in Objective-C.

But other issues I've had: XCode seems to die about once a day; Interface Builder really, really needs Save All; the context sensitive editors is light years behind, well, everybody, and frankly being someone who jumps between C++, C#, Java, PHP, Objective C and sometimes even assembly on a weekly basis, Objective C really should have stayed in the lab.

Don't get me wrong, I don't love Microsoft, or Java, or anything. I've been developing for 22 years, still make a very good living at it, and do it by following the money. I detest Apple's editorial policies but, you know, people rob banks because that's where the money is.

Eric

iphonatic · 08-29-2009, 10:08 AM

Ever tried to debug JavaScript errors in IE?

M$ should have kept IE in the lab if it ever detoured there on its way from Ballmer's evil lair....

I'm a noob at Obj-C but I'm an Apple fan boy from a while back, ex Windoze engineer.

I've just finished my first iPhone app for a client and encountered lots of problems along the way. Most of them would have been solved with a better understanding of all the API calls/classes, but a few were down to deficiencies in the language and terrible lack of debugging.

When I was reading through dev books as a beginner, I remember seeing warnings about "sending to nil" all the time, but never thought it would happen to me... eek!

That said, I'm about to get back to work doing some PHP programming and even though I can do a lot more functionally with PHP, nothing gives me as much satisfaction as seeing something I programmed running on such an awesome device as the iPhone!

Soon as I can make it financially viable, I will throw a few more eggs into the Cocoa development basket, I love it!

Quote:

Originally Posted by NearChaos

Memory management in general tends to be inconsistent. I'm trying to remember the exact calls I used (not on Mac now) but one specific example was collecting HTTP data in an NSData and converting it to a string with NSString stringFromData (or something like that). See what happens when you free the NSData and try to use the string. Then check the documentation to see if there's any mention of the crash you're about to get.

Most of the examples I can think of have to do with either memory management or trying to integrate C++ into Objective-C, or using the C library for functionality that's not in Objective-C.

But other issues I've had: XCode seems to die about once a day; Interface Builder really, really needs Save All; the context sensitive editors is light years behind, well, everybody, and frankly being someone who jumps between C++, C#, Java, PHP, Objective C and sometimes even assembly on a weekly basis, Objective C really should have stayed in the lab.

Don't get me wrong, I don't love Microsoft, or Java, or anything. I've been developing for 22 years, still make a very good living at it, and do it by following the money. I detest Apple's editorial policies but, you know, people rob banks because that's where the money is.

Eric

NearChaos · 08-29-2009, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iphonatic

Ever tried to debug JavaScript errors in IE?

M$ should have kept IE in the lab if it ever detoured there on its way from Ballmer's evil lair....

I'm a noob at Obj-C but I'm an Apple fan boy from a while back, ex Windoze engineer.

I've just finished my first iPhone app for a client and encountered lots of problems along the way. Most of them would have been solved with a better understanding of all the API calls/classes, but a few were down to deficiencies in the language and terrible lack of debugging.

When I was reading through dev books as a beginner, I remember seeing warnings about "sending to nil" all the time, but never thought it would happen to me... eek!

That said, I'm about to get back to work doing some PHP programming and even though I can do a lot more functionally with PHP, nothing gives me as much satisfaction as seeing something I programmed running on such an awesome device as the iPhone!

Soon as I can make it financially viable, I will throw a few more eggs into the Cocoa development basket, I love it!

Sure, that's why I use Firefox on both Apple and Windows. And Linux. I don't have time to be a fanboy of any environment -- I'd rather be billing on whatever someone wants to pay me for. Really I'm thankful that the iPhone is so commercially successful and the development environment is so antediluvian, it makes for far less competition when bidding on projects.

I think it would be a mistake to dwell on the "awesome device"-ness of the iPhone, at least from the point of view of managing your career as a business. If Apple learned anything from the Newton, it's that technological superiority has little to do with commercial success. The iPhone is the Palm 3 of it's time (I mean that in a good way), and if Apple continues to evolve the platform as slowly as they have, they will get their lunch eaten. One difficulty of this market is that people chuck their phones every two years or so, so a 40 million unit head start doesn't buy you as much as you'd think.

iphonatic · 08-29-2009, 10:55 AM

So long as you enjoy coding on any platform I'm very envious!

I think in a perfect world, we would only work doing what we actually enjoy. Apparently, it's one of those keys to success things you see on infomercials.

If it were just about the money, I wouldn't have dropped out of high school and ended up on the other side of the world due to chasing girls

If I had worked at McDonalds and been frugal until now, I could have a couple of houses paid off

I do work my butt off and deal with clients' wishes, but I'm taking a bit more pride in myself now and not accepting jobs I don't want to do, so I can focus on clients/projects I like and build my own business up.

Time will tell if it is a good direction to go in, but if there's no dream, it's harder to stay awake looking at lines of code all night.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NearChaos

I don't have time to be a fanboy of any environment -- I'd rather be billing on whatever someone wants to pay me for.

NearChaos · 08-29-2009, 11:19 AM

Absolutely...programming is programming. I love (almost) every minute of it. Usually when I hate a project it's because of the customer. Granted the iPhone is my least favorite coding environment but I'm working for customers I like on applications I enjoy (they're not fart apps, they're socially meaningful).

And of course, things being what they are, I'm working

Quote:

Originally Posted by iphonatic

So long as you enjoy coding on any platform I'm very envious!

I think in a perfect world, we would only work doing what we actually enjoy. Apparently, it's one of those keys to success things you see on infomercials.

If it were just about the money, I wouldn't have dropped out of high school and ended up on the other side of the world due to chasing girls

If I had worked at McDonalds and been frugal until now, I could have a couple of houses paid off

I do work my butt off and deal with clients' wishes, but I'm taking a bit more pride in myself now and not accepting jobs I don't want to do, so I can focus on clients/projects I like and build my own business up.

Time will tell if it is a good direction to go in, but if there's no dream, it's harder to stay awake looking at lines of code all night.

CamDiver · 09-15-2009, 08:18 PM

I am in no way, shape or form a programming person. I have ideas and transfer them to a friend who knows Xcode and all the stuff to make Apps. We are hopefully ten days away from having our first one completed. Five days will be finished and five days to play with it amongst friends for tests. We have quite a few more in the pipeline too.

I work in underwater film production.

Cheers,
'Cam'

alphagal · 10-14-2009, 03:38 PM

wow am feeling a bit like i don't belong...

my husband and 1 engineer both got laid off from the same company, so they started making iphone games.

i USED to be an accountant before the economy imploded and i haven't been able to find a job in 19 months (who's counting). So now I do accounting/finance for their iPhone game company while I look for a job and take care of our 9 mo old.

oh and i also obsessively read forums haha. can you get paid for doing that?

eatenbyrats · 10-14-2009, 07:10 PM

I make most of my money bartering used underwear for expired cans of Spam on eBay. When I'm not doing that, I sell my plasma at the blood bank.

This whole iPhone boondoggle was the worst thing I've even done in my life, even including my stints in the mental ward and watching re-runs of Barney and friends. I've never made a penny off any of my iPhone apps, and since I started writing in Objective-C I've had permanent halitosis, impotence, and a craving for chopped raw liver Fed-ex'ed from Memphis.

mill4023 · 10-15-2009, 11:06 AM

I'm a software developer. Spent the last 8 years working with MS platforms almost exclusively. SQL Server, VB6, VB.Net, C#, ASP.Net, MS Dynamics AX. I've done a bit of PHP/MySQL stuff on my own and I've now been trying to learn iPhone programming for a couple months. For an MS developer, it's been a pretty big learning curve.

I wasn't expecting to get rich, but my expectations were still a little too high. Of course, I'm just one guy doing apps in my free time, which I don't have a lot of. I've only had my second app out for a couple weeks and I did almost no marketing for the first one. It was more of a hello world for me.

Eagle11 · 10-19-2009, 11:37 AM

I'm a full time high school student.
I started programming 2 or 3 years ago using basic. I used that for about six months, then I moved on to C++. After spending a while making windows apps then windows games using C++, I learned C# and XNA and spent some time making stuff with that, this summer I earned enough to get a mac and start working on iPhone Apps. I learned Objective-C and started working. I currently have one app out on the store. It's more a hobby then anything, but it's pretty nice to make a little money also!

Picoman · 10-19-2009, 02:09 PM

I have 2 weeks left of my contract extension left at the bank. I have one app in review and about to submit my second app. So in two weeks time i will be developing full-time rather than for 1-2 hours at nights.
Will be giving developing a least two months full-time before i decide wether to keep going or not.
I dont mind going back to 9-5 but would be nice to work from home, (even though i will probably be doing 14 hour shifts, but at least its at home!).

materialised · 10-25-2009, 04:41 PM

I am a software engineer, and have been so for over 10 years.
I have developed for a lot of platforms (except the MAC) and currently work for a large petrochemical company, writing embedded pressure control system in C, it gets quite mundane but I do get to travel the world which is a perk of the job.
I have vast experience of C/C++/C#/Pascal/Perl and LISP, I started learning objective C around a month ago, simply for a new challenge; however due to a new baby (4 weeks old) I haven't been able to devote as much time as I would like to it.

I am also working on my PHD thesis, which eats up what 'free' time I do get.

I am based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK. Where are you guys based?

mnemonic_fx · 10-25-2009, 08:16 PM

I was a software engineer for about 1.5 years on the Mac OS X (unfortunately using Qt, until recently I started to use Cocoa). 1.5 years on the iPhone, some failed freelance projects, and twice as a full time (which is also somehow failed).

Now, I'm freelancing again, and developing on my own.

Based in Indonesia, I think I'm the only one from my country who hangs around in this forum quite a lot.

DBinSyd · 12-07-2009, 09:05 PM

I'm an airline pilot flying the SAAB 340 full time for a regional carrier in Australia.

The airline expects us to be professionals, which we definitely are, but they don't pay us a lot so I'm trying to make some kind of an income on the side developing an iPhone app.

Currently my app, CityTime, sells around ten copies a day (but it will take off anyday now! I've been saying that for the last four months).

rocotilos · 12-07-2009, 11:15 PM

I am a full time indie iphone developer. One man show.

slahteine · 12-09-2009, 05:32 PM

I work as a freelance Mac developer. (Which is to say, I'm unemployed!) But I've been programming the Mac since 1996, and Mac OS X since 2001. I wrote a shareware music application called FretPet, a driver for serial Wacom tablets called TabletMagic, a couple of Dashboard widgets, and a couple of freeware titles.

I started programming the iPhone a year ago, and just recently published my first app, ChordCalc, now at a pretty sold version 1.0.2. I really like iPhone programming a lot. I've written a lot of software in lots of languages, and Objective-C is by far my favorite to program in. Sure, C++ has its charms and it's fun to program too, but Objective-C is cleaner, more dynamic, more introspective, and produces more concise code.

I would love nothing more than to make a living programming Mac OS X and iPhone OS exclusively, but truth be told most of the money I make comes from designing and building Drupal 6 websites.

But Drupal actually makes a great companion to Mac OS X and iPhone. I get to work on both the mobile client and the webserver side of things and so I get to see the whole enchilada of integrating a mobile app with a website. And of course, being a Unix webserver itself, Mac OS X makes a perfect staging platform.

rocotilos · 02-10-2010, 10:02 PM

I am a full time iPhone only developer right now.

CHV · 02-10-2010, 10:37 PM

I am a full-time software developer, writing special effects for the film industry (already since the last millennium).

My iPhone apps are a nice addition, but not yet "the" money maker. Maybe it changes tomorrow... Who knows.

rocotilos · 02-11-2010, 12:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHV

I am a full-time software developer, writing special effects for the film industry (already since the last millennium).

My iPhone apps are a nice addition, but not yet "the" money maker. Maybe it changes tomorrow... Who knows.

Awesomeness!

kikesantos · 02-11-2010, 08:06 AM

Where in Japan? I'm in Kyoto right now...

Quote:

Originally Posted by iphonatic

Have a dad who has always been in IT and so been around Macs/PCs since a kid.

Never really a programmer until a few years ago. Working now as a web developer full time in Japan, mostly PHP and Javascript and freelance Flash support on the side (negotiated to work from home several months ago!).

I recently landed a contract as a work from home, part-time iPhone developer with a fairly big systems firm here and am in my first "trial" month now, doing a basic but still challenging enough for me educational app.

I'm using that to force my iPhone skills up so I can hopefully make my own niche apps soon and worst case is that I will be very employable for an iPhone / Cocoa development position here.

I'm a Apple fanboy from many years ago and am so happy to see them leading the way with the iPhone.

The current firm hiring me for the iPhone job asked if I was interested in programming for the Android platform too and I laughed and said, sorry, I am after $$ to support my family and I don't see any money in Android yet..

I'm 27 now.

At first, I was very lost and took me quite a while to get my head around the Obj-C iPhone language, but once over the first steep learning curve, my object oriented PHP experience helped with the language and Flash Actionscript exp. is helps with the concepts of listeners (NSNotifications) and the animation coding.

I would be very happy to be coding iPhone stuff full-time. Not sure I'll get into Core Graphics yet, but if I do, I'm sure there'll be some cool jobs available at the Nintendo main office, which is very close to me here

Mr Jack · 02-11-2010, 08:16 AM

I write computer games, console work mostly.

Rudy · 02-11-2010, 12:01 PM

Java web programmer for the federal gov't (really really boring...but it pays well and I have no fear of losing my job)

I hope one day my game will sell enough so I can take a short leave from work to make more games but untill then I can only work on it at night

mnemonic_fx · 02-11-2010, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rudy

Java web programmer for the federal gov't (really really boring...but it pays well and I have no fear of losing my job)

I hope one day my game will sell enough so I can take a short leave from work to make more games but untill then I can only work on it at night

I understand how you feel. Right now I'm independent, freelancing, no full-time work. It's not a pleasant situation too. But, I'd rather do this, while I'm still young.

Rudy · 02-11-2010, 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mnemonic_fx

I understand how you feel. Right now I'm independent, freelancing, no full-time work. It's not a pleasant situation too. But, I'd rather do this, while I'm still young.

It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't hate java so bad heheh

Avicenna · 02-19-2010, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rudy

It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't hate java so bad heheh

Why do you hate java?