[LINK] Code Year

[grove at zeta.org.au]

On Sat, 7 Jan 2012, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:

> Code Year
>
> http://codeyear.com
>
> 223,278 people have decided to learn to code in 2012.
>
> Why not you? Make your New Year's resolution learning to code.

Bizarre....   ...indeed I have decided to learn Cocos2D for portable 
devices (ahem, the iPad in particular).

I think there is a bubble here, that has perhaps 2-4 years
before the apps market is purged and restructured and the urge to consume
every new release is subsumed.   Or it could go on and become a viable 
niche alternative for superannuated IT professionals to continue to wave 
their curses and or make things rather than let their skills wither away.

*The walled garden, for all its constraints, lockdowns, lockouts, weirdness and 
annoyances has leveled the application market playing field in a way 
that Linux and prior to that the Shareware model never could.   For all 
its flaws, it allows the garage hacker to compete with the big guys. 
It provides certainty and a marketing model that is in the hands of 
every device user (appstores etc).  Now, if you have an idea, the patience,
some modicum of skill, you can build it, release and market your code 
knowing it competes on its own worth, at the same level as something that 
might have a whole department working on it.

I do see a new wave of indy developers is already upon us.  One of the most 
impressive tutorials I have seen is written by a teenage girl who doesn't seem 
to have mastered spelling, but sure has written some seemingly excellent 
tutorials on making things for the idevices, with Cocos2D, Objective C 
and a bunch of open source tools that are all easy to use and supply 
great power to the individual.   We have our garage and punk waves 
in music, but now we are seeing these kids not content to just suck up 
stuff with these devices, but the next wave will surely be built 
in the image of those that are cutting into it now.

So, since my current career has devolved into the seemingly vendor 
approached standardised, virtualised,
sanitised and build not buy, I will not allow myself to be disillusioned 
and cynically let my skills wither away to the detriment of my workplace,
as has happened to so many others.  Instead, I will cynically 
attempt to do whatever I can, to get into this bubble before it pops 
at .99c an app and I again go through another cycle of disillusionment..... 
...or hit on a great opportunity to retire and work on what I like.   ;)


rachel

-- 
Rachel Polanskis                 Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia
grove at zeta.org.au                http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html
    "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum." - Finagle's Law