I was still working retail when I truly felt what it was like to be a novice. I was just starting the second chapter of a book on Objective-C (after two other books and a video course couldn’t help me) and the words were beginning to sound like gibberish. I just couldn’t make it any farther in my journey to learn programming.
Each of these resources contained a small disclaimer in the intro: some prior programming experience required. At that point in my life, I had done a little HTML and CSS, and figured that experience was a solid foundation for learning more advanced programming with the right guidance.
But nothing made sense. And it wasn’t a matter Googling terms I didn’t understand — I didn’t even know what I should be Googling or how to determine a helpful answer. Everything I read went over my head, and it was impossible to sort the helpful information from the advanced stuff that I really wasn’t ready for yet.
That’s when I discovered Programming in Objective-C by Stephen Kochan. It taught a language I was interested in learning, and didn’t require any prior programming experience. I didn’t need to learn C before tackling Objective-C. The book simply started from the beginning. It was for novices like me.
Programming teaches you a new way to think. Yet even after finishing that book, I still remembered what it felt like to be in the dark. When I talked to other people interested in learning to code, I saw them in the same place I was years before…and I wanted to help.
That’s why I launched Novice No Longer, to help people build apps even if they had no prior programming experience. I launched the podcast in order to further this goal. Over time, the podcast drifted away from this vision, and became more a business/entrepreneur/lifestyle design podcast. It’s been amazing, and I’ve had some amazing guests on the show, but it’s time to get back to the original vision.
I’m taking a break from the podcast for a short while for the revamp. When we return, we’re going to have some top app developers on the show, like Jeremy from Tapity and Dan Councell from Realmac Software.
Is there someone you’d like to see on the show? Let me know.
I’m also introducing a brand new segment to the show, called Ask a Developer. Each week, I’m going to play a question asked by you, the listener, and my guest and I will do our best to provide an answer. It’s a chance to get your biggest questions answered by the masters.
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Storytelling has been a part of the human experience since the beginning of history (one of the reasons that we even have history). Our brains are wired to respond to stories — whether it’s an urban legend told to us around a campfire as a child, or the tale of an obese man who lost weight with an all-Subway diet.