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RealMac · Jul 10, 2003, 11:08 AM

This sounds corny and the lounge might be a better place for this kind of thread, but....

How did you know you wanted to be a mac developer? Were you naturally curious about how things worked?

Did you have a natural interest in mathematics and sciences in grade school?

Was there some software you wanted that hadn't been available and you decided you were going to provide a solution to people?

After you decided, what main steps did you take to achieve mastery level in the field?

DaGuy · Jul 10, 2003, 11:28 AM

Well, let me sip on my early morning martinini as I reply to this one.

I take it as a two part question:

1. How did I know I wanted to be a developer?
Well, I got into it by merely wasting time with an HP-41CV calculator -about 20 years ago. It was so much freaking fun! You know with all that indirect addressing, swapping registers etc. This was my intro to computing (as opposed to BASIC) everything else has been less intense after that but still the same fun.

2. A Mac developer? Well Macs were always my favorite desktop (you know the story, things just worked as expected no hassles etc) my other big interest was Unix. Once I heard about Apple's plans to merge their OS with Unix (the Rhapsody days) then I began checking the mac news quite often. When MacOSX came out, I made it my primary dev enviromnent since it also had a good Java VM.
It's been a happy story thereafter.

Gulp... there goes the second olive, time to get a refill.

11011001 · Jul 10, 2003, 04:23 PM

I always thought I was going to be a physicist, ever since grade 2. But then in grade 6 I learned to program, learning programming at that age made it a natural thing for me.

In high school I finally decided what I wanted to be. I thought about which I liked more, programming or physics, and I realized that programming was the most satisfying. In physics one learns the rules governing our world, it's more of an observational thing, but in programming, one makes their own rules. This is the thing that excites me most about programming, one is creating something, and that something doesn't have to be governed by any set rules, it's completely free, limited only by one's imagination.

Hmm, so, now I am computer science student, taking physics on the side

I prefer programming for macs. I like the elegance on the mac side of things. It's all about simplicity and beauty.

Wevah · Jul 10, 2003, 11:54 PM

I like to make things "go".

invisibleX · Jul 11, 2003, 09:26 AM

The fact that it could make me a good job and also happens to be something I enjoy doing immensly.

trusted_content · Jul 11, 2003, 03:36 PM

Being pissed off at the way current apps work and wanting to make them better is what got me curious.

Then I just fell in love with the whole process.

osxisfun · Jul 11, 2003, 04:21 PM

I like creating stuff.

that and the chicks....

V0ID · Jul 12, 2003, 03:44 AM

I first programmed in basic on a Mac Plus when I was about 11. I just copied a drawing program out from a book, then later a I made a little animation using lines and circles.

A couple of years later I made an attempt at FutureBasic. I learned a little more, but I didn't get too far.

It wasn't until high school when I studied IT that I got my first taste of real programming (in Pascal and Visual Basic). At the time I was a year out from graduating and didn't know what I wanted to do. So eventually I decided on IT at university. I enjoyed programming, it was something that just made sense. It worked. So thats what I did.

I guess I could have studied computer science, or software engineering, but at the time I didn't understand the (minor) differences between them and plain old IT. I just wanted to learn how to program properly.

Although I was focusing on programming back then, I have now gained an appreciation of the other parts that make up information technology. In fact, I'm looking for work that encompasses the whole SDLC because although I still enjoy programming the most, I feel that getting experience working within the whole IT process will be far more valuable career-wise. I'm currently working as a C++ programer for a printing company.

Oh, and I've always liked Macs.

Ghoser777 · Jul 12, 2003, 05:38 PM

Being a developer is like being in love. No one can tell you that you are, you just know it, balls to bone, through and through.

Matt "The Oracle" Fahrenbacher

Gul Banana · Jul 13, 2003, 12:08 AM

Programming is simply the most fun and fulfilling thing that I have ever experienced.

aleph_null · Jul 14, 2003, 02:15 AM

Originally posted by osxisfun:
that and the chicks....

aleph_null · Jul 14, 2003, 02:27 AM

As far as mastery goes ... two things:

- Take a course or read a book or something on basic computer architecture. Learn how CPUs work, how caches work, pipelining, etc. You'll rarely need to know the details of what's going on under the hood, but it often helps to at least have an general idea.

- Also learn about all the levels above the hardware. Instruction sets to assembly to low-level languages (like C) to higher-level languages (like Java) to applications. Computer software is just abstraction layered on top of abstraction. The more you know about each layer, the better you can choose how to get done what you need to get done.

Three things:

- Practice. Code stuff. Figure out what works well and what doesn't. Some languages are good for some tasks, not for others. Some design patterns are good choices for a particular project, others not so much. Reading about it all is good too, but there's no substitute for experience.

Did you have a natural interest in mathematics and sciences in grade school?

Yeah, but what does that have to do with software? God, I can't remember basic algebra anymore ...