RWDevCon Inspiration Talk – Possible by Tammy Coron

iOS Development: Definitely Possible

Let me give you an example in my own life. When I first started in IOS development, not many people were in the game yet. In fact, at the time I don’t even think that we called it IOS development. I believe we refer to it as iPhone development.

We didn’t have a lot of APIs and it didn’t take too much to get familiar with all of them, but it still took a little time to learn about them.

Nowadays of course things are way different:

• Apple is constantly adding new settings.
• There are hundreds of APIs.
• Even a new language, let’s not forget that!

Do you think this information will magically appear within your brain? No. It’s going to take dedicated time and deliberate practice if you wish to learn about them, and that’s why we’re here. Like everyone in this room, at one time or another I had zero experience with IOS development.

Yes, that’s me!

Crazy as it sounds, I wasn’t born knowing how to do this. I had no clue how to use UITableView. I couldn’t tell a delegate from a protocol, and I had absolutely no idea why I was synthesizing everything.

Like you, I had to learn. In fact, I’m still learning. Thanks to this excellent IOS community that we’re all apart of, we don’t have to be isolated while we’re doing it. We can help one another and remind each other about the possibilities.

It should be noted that we can also smack each other around when one of us talks about things being impossible, and I would encourage you to hit them harder when they complain about how long it’s taking to finish an app. You’ve all been warned.

That formula for success, what is it?

Well there isn’t one. Actually I should say there isn’t just one. There are many and they’re all unique.

It’s up to you to create your own formula. I’m going to give you a hint at what you need to do that. You need:

• The passion to get it done.
• The dedication or the time required to get it done.
• And this is probably the most important, the understanding that nothing is impossible.

Make Your Impossible Possible

Look, I won’t lie. Despite being at this since nearly the start of IOS development, there are times when things seem impossible, especially now that we have this new language, a language that none of us has ever seen before.

It’s swift, our new mountain and we can climb it together.

While we’re climbing it, it’s important not to give up. Keep at it. Know that we’re all here to cheer you on and help you along the way.

Take your time. Enjoy the process.

Whatever you do, don’t beat yourself up. Save your energy for the guy complaining about things being impossible.

Because remember, absolutely nothing is impossible. The impossible just takes a little longer.