mik3cap | Part V: Almost Done

Today was a tough day - half the sessions I went to were way above my head. I've gone to everything else that's geared towards beginners, but honestly the conference doesn't really have something I would have taken advantage of: an actual classroom setting for utter newbies, where they run you through hands-on tutorials. I've learned a tiny little bit on my own so far, but I think the thing I am mostly coming away with is the "spirit" of Apple development. In all the sessions I've attended, no matter what development group was speaking, they are all singing the same tune regarding the usage of the design patterns and APIs. They present a very unified front and a collective mindset that pervades everything. More than once I saw and heard sayings like "keep it simple, but not too simple" and everyone refers to the same patterns like Model-View-Controller and the tree and layer models.

In short, I feel like I've taken the first step - now I have a ton of documentation to read, and I'm going to build my first app; the computer version of a card game I created a while back. I'm going to make it as a desktop app first and make it multiplayer, and then for ha-has I'll see how hard it is to port to iPhone (to see if I can do a decent job designing it without tying it too much to one platform).

At the end of the day today, Apple held its "beer bash" at the nearby Yerba Buena (Busch) Gardens. They rolled out a massive amount of food (Chinese, Japanese, Italian, and "baseball stadium food") and served up beer and wine. It wasn't anything super duper fancy, but it was impressive that they managed to feed about 6000 people. Part of the beer bash tradition is also to hold a mini-concert with a surprise musical guest; and the guest was none other than the Barenaked Ladies! Some people were holding out for Coldplay, and I myself was thinking we'd get someone a little more sophisticated like Beck (who apparently played for Apple in Japan) but it was still good music to listen to while eating and hobnobbing. BNL apparently also is extremely geeky and digs their iPhones and they made a lot of jokes and stuff while playing. One of them is also a wicked gamer.

Oh, and I got to hold an iPhone 3G in my hand. An Apple engineer who managed to procure one for himself showed it to me, in order to demonstrate the magic 8-ball application he wrote for it. The thing feels like a damned playing card, it's so incredibly thin and light.

I'll be heading back to New York soon... but not before I have an In N Out burger and a real Mission burrito! I've been invited over to gilko's Friday night for a game night, and he and I will likely spend Saturday driving around town doing stuff until I catch my red eye back East.