Getting back in the saddle ... guidance..... iPhone Development ?

Question

I am in my mid - forties.

I have always had a passion for Software Development. and a tremendous amount of respect for the craft. I, myself, am a Computer Science Major who graduated from college in the 80's.

Back in the day, late 80's thru the 90's, I was a very good Borland C++ developer who developed SW as part of a team (I grew into the team lead and was married to the Petzold book). The SW we developed actually shipped to end users.

For the last 10-12 years I have been on the management / leadership side from an IT Operations side (Unix Manager, Windows Manager, Middleware lead, Architect etc..) and have only been able to keep the slightest pulse on development. Translation - as I try to do stuff now I am rusty as heck !

My question is this.

I have decided to get back in the development game , if for nothing else my own enjoyment.

I am considering 2 paths to get started. ( I like to go deep, not surface level) 1. Objective-C for iPhone development 2. HTML5 web apps (iPhone like pure web apps, java based, slick look)

Thoughts on future of these 2 ?

I heard rumors that Apple was going to allow dev for iPhone on PC via Visual Studio but that never happened :(

Finally - are there still developers at my age or is it completely an 20-30 something crowd now and not worth getting back into the game !

Thanks for hearing me out.

Answer 1

If you have a C/C++ background, I think iPhone development would be a good fit for you. I really, truly, hopefully doubt that Objective-C will be the only platform for the iPhone/iPad line of devices forever, but it's not likely to diminish much in the next five years. That said, I've not found a single company yet seeking iPhone/iPad development experience specifically. Occasionally companies will venture to write an app, but it's not as widespread as perhaps it could be, yet.

If you're looking to switch career paths, enterprise C# and Java development are hot, as well as technologies like Rails/Grails/Lift in more forward looking, liberal businesses.

HTML5 web apps will be slow in adoption for a while, simply due to the lag between spec and browser implementations. If you want to create websites or rich web interfaces, however, this will definitely be something you'll want to look into.

It really depends on where you want to go. Are you looking to pick up a hobby, or do you want to switch careers?

Answer 2

Without exception, cross platform development tools are always technically inferior to platform specific tools. They simply cannot take advantage of the each platforms strengths. They always lag behind the platform specific tools in the best of circumstance.

Choosing to use cross platform tools because of training or supposed flexibility or career planning almost always ends up in inferior products. The tradeoff is seldom worth it. You can't replace organization with constant study with technology. I advise clients to use cross platform tools only when cross platform capability is a core function of the app itself.

The DHTML/Javascript tools are not very popular. If you search Stackoverflow itself for them you will see just a few dozen questions for each cross platform tool and half of those will be "is this any good?" type of questions.

Apple will never allow development for Apple products on non-Apple platforms. They do not wish to lose control and they don't have the business model to support it.

If you want to write for the iPhone and "go deep" then Objective-C and the Apple API are really the only way to go. I would give similar advice for the Droid or any other platform. Learn the tools and the API made for that platform. The time spent learning upfront will pay off quickly in superior products.