If you have been reading my blog for the last couple weeks, you might have noticed that I have been using Xamarin to develop two mobile applications. When I wrote my initial impressions, I ran into multiple issues with getting the Android SDK to work and I also didn’t know how to use Xamarin Forms, and how to use the build in layouts, such as a StackLayout. Fast Forward a couple of weeks later, I got used to working with Android, working with the layout system and other features. In fact, I originally wrote a quick tutorial on how to use the ListView Control.
At the time of writing this post, I have been blogging about my software development career for over a month. Without a doubt, this has been an awesome career move for me. Ever since I posted my very first post I’ve gotten multiple compliments on the design of this website. These comments specifically surprised me the most, since I’m not a designer at all. However, I’m willing to work on the design of my apps until it looks good. I realize that I have not talked about iOS development lately. Don’t worry, I just finished the iOS app for Park-Lane Tobacconist. I think the app turned out quite well, and I definitely have plans to write about some new topics I learned during the process of making that app. I also plan to expand my writing in the area of mobile development to include Xamarin. I recently took on a cross-platform mobile application project, as a reason to check out the latest versions of the technology. I’m still in the early stages of this new project but my early thoughts on using cross-platform tools will be coming out in the next couple of weeks.
At the time of writing this post, its currently New Years Day. I figured today would be the perfect day to layout my vision for this site, and talk about some goals for my software development career in 2018. For easier reading purposes, I have broke down each of my goals into sections.
Why start a Blog?
This past summer, I read a book called ‘Soft Skills: The software developer’s life manual’ by John Sonmez. This book has changed my perspective on life, In return I begin to start the journey to take back my time and try to work for myself. This book explains how important it is to market skills as a software developer in order to get new clients and maybe a higher paying job. This book also mentions multiple times that a blog is a perfect medium to market my skill sets through blog posts and links to previous work. However with that being said, This isn’t my first time blogging. I’ve been trying to blog about various topics ranging from programming, tech news and video games for many years, but at the time I was very young and was not thinking about a long term career goal. This time it is a completely different perspective, I really want to be able to turn my skills into a sustainable business where I can be happy with the work I’m doing while taking back my time. Blogging into 2018 should help me do that while being able to market myself.
What are you going to be blogging about?
This is a very good question. While I was building this site, I often thought about what I’m going to write about. After some thinking I came up with the following ideas.
Documenting the progress on my side projects: At the time of writing this, I’m currently working on two side projects. Both of these projects I’m extremely passionate about and generally enjoy working on them. However, I think writing about these projects will help potential job recruiters and new developers some perspective on what technologies I know and use.
Documenting my experiences learning Swift again: It is no secret that I love Apple and the iPhone. When the Swift Programming language was announced in 2014. I was hooked. The announcement couldn’t not have come at a better time either, I was just about to graduate high school and start my first year of community college. With that in mind, I stayed up late reading Swift tutorials, watching Swift YouTube videos and reading the official Swift iBook. I made a few apps and submitted them on the App Store during that summer. The apps were not very good, but I was proud of them. However, I also wrote a lot of Swift code. (most of which I lost due to a hard disk failure :/). Since I started working full time, I haven’t had a chance to use Swift, Most of my day is spent in Visual Studio and C#. Don’t get me wrong, C# is one my personal favorite languages and tools like Xamarin make it possible to develop mobile apps in C#. However, through my experience, these tools are hard to use and I have ran into problems with them. With that being said, I can’t wait to start learning Swift again and to create better apps.
Software Development tips and tutorials: This is a pretty generic topic but I figured since developing software is a learning process. I figured I would create some content on how to accomplish certain tasks, tutorials on certain frameworks and languages and good tips for newer developers.
How often are you going to post?
This is a easy one! My goal is to post one blog post a week on any of the following topics outlined above.
If your still reading this, congratulations you have made it through my first blog post. Its only going to get better from here. If you have questions, comments and concerns please use the contact section of the home page or email me if you want to get a hold of me.
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