Spring Love and what object oriented programming means

I have a confession. I thought that Mobile Makers was full of shit.

You know that saying, if it sounds too good to be true than it probably is? I thought that applied. What are the reasons I was skeptical about Mobile Makers?

1. They say, anyone can learn it (even people who haven't programmed before)
2. They say, people will want to hire you after the class if you work hard (I've been working hard my entire life and no one has jumped at the chance to hire me.)
3. They say, Mobile Makers has a network of peers and mentors that want to help you.
4. They say, Mobile Makers teaches you things that you can't learn on your own.

I don't want to sound like an advertisement for them... but I know for a fact that 3/4 of those things are true (since I haven't completed the class, I don't know if people will want to hire me).

Here is my second confession: I'm in love with Mobile Makers.

Also, I'm in love with life at the moment because it's SPRING and SUNNY.

Yes that is what I'm currently knitting. If you're patient I'll show you what I'm knitting at the end of this. and YES I am doing this class in downtown Chicago. No more suburbs for this girl, I'm an official big city person. I'm probably also loving life because I started taking anti-depressants again. Huzzah mental health.

But back to my undying love for Mobile Makers. I've spent ten hours for the past six days (well... only eight yesterday) dedicating myself to learning objective c. AND IT'S WORKING!!!

I've always known that I pick things up fast, but I didn't realize how fast I can pick things up if I can ask why things happen. One thing I've learned from the past week is that once I know the reason you do something or the reason something works... then I understand it.

Case in point. Segues. What is a Segue in objective c? GOOD QUESTION LET ME ANSWER.

(I'll try to tone it down... sorry just got excited that I TOTALLY KNOW HOW TO CODE)
(I know I just used parenthesis above but I have a funny story about the word segue. Up until a couple years ago, I spelled it segueway because I didn't realize that segue is pronounced seg-way. Thanks sister and Bekky for making me not look like an idiot! Oh english.)

A segue is a way to go from one screen to another and pass along information when you do it. Two points I'd like to make about this. First, this is the entire point of object oriented programming. Programming is basically turning computer language into words so we can modify it. Object oriented programming's strength is that you can break a complicated idea into smaller parts, create a thing or an action (method/function), and use those smaller parts to make a giant thing.

Example (because that was super vague): I want to tell a computer/robot to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I could write it this way:

1. open bread bag
2. take two pieces of bread out of bad
3. place slice of bread on the table
4. open jar of peanut butter
5. pick up knife
6. put knife in open jar of peanut butter
7. put peanut butter on knife
8. take knife out of jar
9. rub peanut butter on one side of the bread until evenly coated.
10. put down knife
11. open jar of raspberry jam (the best)
12. pick up knife
13. put knife in open jar of jam
14. put jam on knife
15. take knife out of jar
16. rub jam on one side of the bread until evenly coated
17. put down knife
18. put the two pieces of bread together with the peanut buttered side and jam side touching each other.

That was a lot longer than you thought it would be, but not unbearable. The trouble with this comes when you want to make the ULTIMATE peanut butter and jam sandwich with multiple layers. You would have to repeat 7 steps just to tell the person to do the same thing as before (lines 4-10 are essentially the same as 11-17). And what would happen if you forgot to say to open the jar? then you'd have to go through a huge list of steps to find out where you missed something.

With objective C, you can turn an action into something that's repeatable.

I can hear your attention waning so I'll make this quick.

Instead of having one list, you would have a couple. the first list would turn the 7 lines of code into one method that you would call on whatever property(peanut butter or jam) you want.

prepare bread for sandwich:(topping added)

1. open jar of (topping added)
2. pick up knife
3. put knife in jar of (topping added)
4. put (topping added) on knife
5. take knife out of jar of (topping added)
6. rub (topping added) on one side of the bread.
7. put down knife

Make Sandwich

1. open bread bag
2. take two pieces of bread out of bad
3. place slice of bread on the table
4. prepare bread for sandwich: peanut butter
5. prepare bread for sandwich: jam
6. put the two pieces of bread together with the peanut buttered side and jam side touching each other.

MUCH SIMPLER IN THE LONG RUN. Which is the point of coding. Yes you can do something the long way, but if you want to create something automated that does the same action over and over... why not be lazy about it?

Ok. I was going to talk about segues but that'll have to wait for tomorrow. Because it's time to figure out how to make a tic tac toe game.

PS. I'm making a shawl.