13 ms·

Leah Culver - Three weeks of iPhone development

66 points by twampss 17y ago

wallflower 17y ago
> Memory management in Objective-C isn't nearly as terrifying as I thought it would be but it is very frustrating to see the non-descriptive EXEC BAD ACCESS. I always make a ton of mistakes when trying out new things. Luckily, I'm good at debugging! At some critical point, Objective-C/Cocoa stops being the problem (EXC_BAD_ACCESS, IB gotchas, CoreData mysteries) and starts becoming the solution. Highly recommend "Cocoa Design Patterns" I really like Leah's tone in this essay. It sounds like she is having fun with the jump-in-the-deep-end and start treading code method of learning.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
  - mgrouchy 17y ago
    Do we know she is vain? I don't know Leah, do you know her? I always thought when you were writing a blog post on your personal blog you should probably refer to yourself as "I", it would be significantly worse if she referred to herself in the third person.
  - dannyr 17y ago
    indiejade, I have read your snarky comments here on HN. I don't understand where your negativity is coming from. Are you still peeved that engineers are more valued than business people in the startup world? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1106403 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1106403
    - dannyr 17y ago
      Oh well, indiejade, deleted her comment.
  - tremendo 17y ago
    I disagree. The article offers relevant pointers, reasons, links and first-person impressions (that's the whole point of blogging!). If I were interested in getting started with iPhone development, she provides me with books, tutorials, examples and libraries and their documentation, twitter feeds and her point of view. That, to me, is valuable. If Ms. Culver is "vain beyond words" or not, is completely irrelevant.
  - wallflower 17y ago
    Another commenter mentioned that you might be non-technical (hate that term). But for reference, Spencer Fry has a comprehensive and awesome list of the value of business-oriented people at a startup. Yin and Yang. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=779378 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=779378 http://spencerfry.com/whats-a-non-programmer-to-do http://spencerfry.com/whats-a-non-programmer-to-do
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- ryanpetrich 17y ago
  > It sounds like she is having fun with the jump-in-the-deep-end and start treading code method of learning. The best way to learn how to swim is to drown. Wait, that can't be right.
slavingia 17y ago
Check out what I did in a week: http://oneweekapp.com/ http://oneweekapp.com/. Cocoa is _awesome_ for rapid development.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
muffins 17y ago
I'm sure I'll get buried for this, but I have a hard time believing I'm not right. Before I start, I don't know Leah and I'm not judging her character or her coding abilities. Leah gets a lot of attention for the one obvious reason that doesn't need to be restated. That is why these articles are posted. This blog post doesn't contain any unique information that is presented any better than you could find elsewhere. She has not been involved in that many projects and few of them have gone very far. Pownce was probably her peak. So I'm not trying to be negative or a nitpicker or anything else like that. I just can't stand that people post the most minute things she does. I remember Techcrunch posted an article the other day because she joined some other company and left SixApart. There are so many developers and designers that are switching around every day and we barely hear about it aside from the big league players. The fact that Ms. Culver gets her own slice of attention for doing almost nothing of noteworthiness starts to wear on my patience is all.
- dannyr 17y ago
  Have you seen her work in OAuth? Her other open-source projects? You are guilty for the same reason you are accusing others for giving her attention. You don't think she's good enough because of it. Seriously, the startup world and the Valley is such a male-dominated place. I would imagine it's not easy being a woman in this space. There are so many blog posts from men who went to the top of Hacker News and some of them from people who have no experience delivering. I also haven't seen any of her posts here for a long time. I'm not saying we cut her slack but let's hold her to the same standard we do for posts by men here on Hacker News.
  - muffins 17y ago
    Look at the article that was linked here. I'm not blaming any of this on her. The guy who added this and the people who upvote it only did so for one reason. There is hardly anything informative in this article that hasn't been said a million times over. EDIT: I shouldn't even be calling it an article. Your idea that its hard being a woman in a male-dominated industry such as this...that's a whole other argument for another time.
ryanwaggoner 17y ago
A lot of the comments seem to be pushing Titanium Mobile or other schemes to avoid dealing with the nitty-gritty details of Obj-C. Does anyone have any comment on that? I'm a couple weeks into learning iPhone development, coming from a (mostly) LAMP background, and I'm really enjoying the new direction. I tend to view things like Phonegap and Titanium with skepticism, as it seems like a way to avoid learning hard stuff, and you'd end up giving up a lot of control, performance, and flexibility, but is this the case?
- ryanpetrich 17y ago
  Yes, you do end up giving up a lot of control, performance and flexibility, but a lot of applications don't require it. Titanium has the ability to code modules in Objective-C for those that do, but this might be more complicated than just writing the entire application in Objective-C.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
bonsaitree 17y ago
I held my tongue on this earlier today thinking it would simply go away, but no more. Bottom line #1: The content of this article is not technically newsworthy by HN norms. Bottom line #2: If you're a photogenic & telegenic young woman software developer in Silcon Valley and you're also sufficiently socially charming, creative, or just plain lucky enough to fall in with the "right crowd" at the "right time" you can get spades of press far easier than any male or any non-photogenic female. Remember Kim Polese? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Polese http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Polese ('nuff said) I can't cite the study offhand (I believe it was published in Nature in '05), but physical looks are a large multiplier (and and even larger divider) in young women's careers in almost all fields (there's an XKCD for this somewhere too). The effect dampens sharply later in life. As society has become more mediated, I'm sure that effect has only grown. Looks sell, but that sales job must be followed through with commitment and execution. Judging from afar (Pownce's infamous Python eval() hole aside), I've not seen her lacking in either. "Easy" fame and press is a double-edged sword. She's then expected to live-up to her "billing" and I doubt anyone is quite prepared for such a sudden burst of notoriety and the implicit expectations which come as part of fame's "package deal". At least by being a developer, her contributions can be more objectively judged. I suspect she takes great comfort in that. I also think even by Valley Standards she's bounced from one company (and one relationship) to the next with alarming frequency. The fact that I even KNOW those few details of her personal life is evidence of our society's double-standard for women. I can't think of a single other 'famous' developer who's personal life I know about other than Guido, but that's because he and his family used to live near us in Virginia. I suspect Leah had few options for advancement at SixApart and simply had to "ride-out her earn-out" per Pownce's acquisition agreement. I also suspect one of the implicit assumptions with her arrangement at Plancast was press-related (again simply leveraging fame as many "advisorships" in Valley companies end up being). Nevertheless, I'm sure she takes a good deal of comfort from the fact that, at the end of the day, she's now a developer with a deliverable exploring a fresh new non-Django-related API and platform. If she had wanted to be purely a "face" she likely would've stayed at CNET (err..Webshots) or moved to a more media-centric role. I also suspect she's already seen the darker side of Silicon Valley and has little wish to return to those salad days. Let her build. Let her be.
- 17y ago
Rauchg 17y ago
Please, this is a very decent blog post. For those quoting the "HN standards", I see poorer articles than this every single day.
- amackera 17y ago
  Hear, hear.
- jasonmcalacanis 17y ago
  Feels strange, and frankly bitter, for folks to take her apart like this. If you don't like the story just skip it.
  - alayne 17y ago
    So many people aren't even talking about the content. It's a glimpse into iPhone development which is an interesting alternate universe for me. I don't think she was going for a Pulitzer. I think we need to celebrate the fact that there are women in software and technology. Look at how Kathy Sierra was attacked. Men do not get abused like this. It is a very demographically skewed business and that just seems wrong to me.
- rgrieselhuber 17y ago
  Agreed. I'm just about to build an iPhone app and am bookmarking little snippets like this all over the web. She mentioned a couple of things I hadn't even thought about yet. I know that she's gotten crap in the past, but from what I've seen she is an entrepreneurial programmer who may not have the highest technical ability but makes up for it with her ability to communicate and with her contributions to a variety of projects. The people who complained about this post making the front page because the author also happens to be a cute blonde (let's show some spine if we're going to insult somebody's intelligence, boys) just come off as bitter know-it-alls. Go get some sun.
- fizx 17y ago
  Also, I really like the typography.
- 17y ago
khelloworld 17y ago
Wow. I can't believe the controversy here. Reading some of the comments, it seems people are actually jealous of her renown.

66 points by twampss 17y ago

> Memory management in Objective-C isn't nearly as terrifying as I thought it would be but it is very frustrating to see the non-descriptive EXEC BAD ACCESS. I always make a ton of mistakes when trying out new things. Luckily, I'm good at debugging! At some critical point, Objective-C/Cocoa stops being the problem (EXC_BAD_ACCESS, IB gotchas, CoreData mysteries) and starts becoming the solution. Highly recommend "Cocoa Design Patterns" I really like Leah's tone in this essay. It sounds like she is having fun with the jump-in-the-deep-end and start treading code method of learning.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
- mgrouchy 17y ago
  Do we know she is vain? I don't know Leah, do you know her? I always thought when you were writing a blog post on your personal blog you should probably refer to yourself as "I", it would be significantly worse if she referred to herself in the third person.
- dannyr 17y ago
  indiejade, I have read your snarky comments here on HN. I don't understand where your negativity is coming from. Are you still peeved that engineers are more valued than business people in the startup world? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1106403 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1106403
  - dannyr 17y ago
    Oh well, indiejade, deleted her comment.
- tremendo 17y ago
  I disagree. The article offers relevant pointers, reasons, links and first-person impressions (that's the whole point of blogging!). If I were interested in getting started with iPhone development, she provides me with books, tutorials, examples and libraries and their documentation, twitter feeds and her point of view. That, to me, is valuable. If Ms. Culver is "vain beyond words" or not, is completely irrelevant.
- wallflower 17y ago
  Another commenter mentioned that you might be non-technical (hate that term). But for reference, Spencer Fry has a comprehensive and awesome list of the value of business-oriented people at a startup. Yin and Yang. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=779378 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=779378 http://spencerfry.com/whats-a-non-programmer-to-do http://spencerfry.com/whats-a-non-programmer-to-do
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
ryanpetrich 17y ago
> It sounds like she is having fun with the jump-in-the-deep-end and start treading code method of learning. The best way to learn how to swim is to drown. Wait, that can't be right.

slavingia 17y ago

Check out what I did in a week: http://oneweekapp.com/ http://oneweekapp.com/. Cocoa is _awesome_ for rapid development.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

muffins 17y ago

I'm sure I'll get buried for this, but I have a hard time believing I'm not right. Before I start, I don't know Leah and I'm not judging her character or her coding abilities. Leah gets a lot of attention for the one obvious reason that doesn't need to be restated. That is why these articles are posted. This blog post doesn't contain any unique information that is presented any better than you could find elsewhere. She has not been involved in that many projects and few of them have gone very far. Pownce was probably her peak. So I'm not trying to be negative or a nitpicker or anything else like that. I just can't stand that people post the most minute things she does. I remember Techcrunch posted an article the other day because she joined some other company and left SixApart. There are so many developers and designers that are switching around every day and we barely hear about it aside from the big league players. The fact that Ms. Culver gets her own slice of attention for doing almost nothing of noteworthiness starts to wear on my patience is all.

dannyr 17y ago
Have you seen her work in OAuth? Her other open-source projects? You are guilty for the same reason you are accusing others for giving her attention. You don't think she's good enough because of it. Seriously, the startup world and the Valley is such a male-dominated place. I would imagine it's not easy being a woman in this space. There are so many blog posts from men who went to the top of Hacker News and some of them from people who have no experience delivering. I also haven't seen any of her posts here for a long time. I'm not saying we cut her slack but let's hold her to the same standard we do for posts by men here on Hacker News.
- muffins 17y ago
  Look at the article that was linked here. I'm not blaming any of this on her. The guy who added this and the people who upvote it only did so for one reason. There is hardly anything informative in this article that hasn't been said a million times over. EDIT: I shouldn't even be calling it an article. Your idea that its hard being a woman in a male-dominated industry such as this...that's a whole other argument for another time.

ryanwaggoner 17y ago

A lot of the comments seem to be pushing Titanium Mobile or other schemes to avoid dealing with the nitty-gritty details of Obj-C. Does anyone have any comment on that? I'm a couple weeks into learning iPhone development, coming from a (mostly) LAMP background, and I'm really enjoying the new direction. I tend to view things like Phonegap and Titanium with skepticism, as it seems like a way to avoid learning hard stuff, and you'd end up giving up a lot of control, performance, and flexibility, but is this the case?

ryanpetrich 17y ago
Yes, you do end up giving up a lot of control, performance and flexibility, but a lot of applications don't require it. Titanium has the ability to code modules in Objective-C for those that do, but this might be more complicated than just writing the entire application in Objective-C.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

bonsaitree 17y ago

I held my tongue on this earlier today thinking it would simply go away, but no more. Bottom line #1: The content of this article is not technically newsworthy by HN norms. Bottom line #2: If you're a photogenic & telegenic young woman software developer in Silcon Valley and you're also sufficiently socially charming, creative, or just plain lucky enough to fall in with the "right crowd" at the "right time" you can get spades of press far easier than any male or any non-photogenic female. Remember Kim Polese? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Polese http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Polese ('nuff said) I can't cite the study offhand (I believe it was published in Nature in '05), but physical looks are a large multiplier (and and even larger divider) in young women's careers in almost all fields (there's an XKCD for this somewhere too). The effect dampens sharply later in life. As society has become more mediated, I'm sure that effect has only grown. Looks sell, but that sales job must be followed through with commitment and execution. Judging from afar (Pownce's infamous Python eval() hole aside), I've not seen her lacking in either. "Easy" fame and press is a double-edged sword. She's then expected to live-up to her "billing" and I doubt anyone is quite prepared for such a sudden burst of notoriety and the implicit expectations which come as part of fame's "package deal". At least by being a developer, her contributions can be more objectively judged. I suspect she takes great comfort in that. I also think even by Valley Standards she's bounced from one company (and one relationship) to the next with alarming frequency. The fact that I even KNOW those few details of her personal life is evidence of our society's double-standard for women. I can't think of a single other 'famous' developer who's personal life I know about other than Guido, but that's because he and his family used to live near us in Virginia. I suspect Leah had few options for advancement at SixApart and simply had to "ride-out her earn-out" per Pownce's acquisition agreement. I also suspect one of the implicit assumptions with her arrangement at Plancast was press-related (again simply leveraging fame as many "advisorships" in Valley companies end up being). Nevertheless, I'm sure she takes a good deal of comfort from the fact that, at the end of the day, she's now a developer with a deliverable exploring a fresh new non-Django-related API and platform. If she had wanted to be purely a "face" she likely would've stayed at CNET (err..Webshots) or moved to a more media-centric role. I also suspect she's already seen the darker side of Silicon Valley and has little wish to return to those salad days. Let her build. Let her be.

17y ago

Rauchg 17y ago

Please, this is a very decent blog post. For those quoting the "HN standards", I see poorer articles than this every single day.

amackera 17y ago
Hear, hear.
jasonmcalacanis 17y ago
Feels strange, and frankly bitter, for folks to take her apart like this. If you don't like the story just skip it.
- alayne 17y ago
  So many people aren't even talking about the content. It's a glimpse into iPhone development which is an interesting alternate universe for me. I don't think she was going for a Pulitzer. I think we need to celebrate the fact that there are women in software and technology. Look at how Kathy Sierra was attacked. Men do not get abused like this. It is a very demographically skewed business and that just seems wrong to me.
rgrieselhuber 17y ago
Agreed. I'm just about to build an iPhone app and am bookmarking little snippets like this all over the web. She mentioned a couple of things I hadn't even thought about yet. I know that she's gotten crap in the past, but from what I've seen she is an entrepreneurial programmer who may not have the highest technical ability but makes up for it with her ability to communicate and with her contributions to a variety of projects. The people who complained about this post making the front page because the author also happens to be a cute blonde (let's show some spine if we're going to insult somebody's intelligence, boys) just come off as bitter know-it-alls. Go get some sun.
fizx 17y ago
Also, I really like the typography.
17y ago

khelloworld 17y ago

Wow. I can't believe the controversy here. Reading some of the comments, it seems people are actually jealous of her renown.