Subject: Adventures in taking over a stalled project
J. Spencer Love
I've been programming since 1969. In the 1980s, I tutored MIT students
on object-oriented programming. I have iPhone, iPad, and books, but still
I was having a bit of trouble taking the plunge into full iOS app
development.
A friend of mine has been working on an app, which she started in December
2009, and about which I gave some advice. A beta was published in early
2010, but since then, her project was stalled. She said she couldn't
figure out how to implement my proposed solution. Actually, I think it
was her day job that ate her brain.
So I offered to take over the project. I've been working on it for over a
month now. Her code had...issues. iOS didn't work the way she thought.
On the other hand, even though I'd read a bunch of documentation, it
didn't work the way I thought, either. (Learning curve, anyone?)
Meanwhile, the advice I gave may have become obsolete with the advent of
iOS 4 -- or maybe not.
So I'll be describing some of the stuff I've learned along the way, and
also sharing with you some testbed code I wrote to figure out what was
*really* going on. If you're fairly new at this, you'll learn something.
If not, please come anyway and shoot down my ideas! Then I'll learn
something.
The app will have in-app purchasing, and it's sort of a book reader and
sort of a game. I won't share some details about the app that my friend
wants to keep proprietary, but there is still plenty to talk about. Also,
I'm looking for beta testers. And content providers, for that matter.