S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night! S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night!

Gratuitous Bay City Rollers reference, yet the chorus runs thru my head more than I thought it would when I first heard the song.  It is catchy, I have to confess.  So another Saturday and another day running with the family and sneaking off to code a bit.  When I thought of 30 days, I was excited about how cool a month's worth of work would look like.  I conveniently forgot that I also like weekends to break up my month of work.  There is another lesson to learn here, I am sure of it.

The iPhone side of things are looking good. The navigation system from menu, to scoring, to input, and history is working pretty well.  I have run a few practice scenarios thru the App and it works as I envisioned.  I will later add some scoring variations to the screens.  This might force some re-design, but you can't plan for everything with a limited time frame.  The games are not yet using Core Data to save a game, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.  

I started to design the iPad version on simple paper and pencil.  I like to use an engineering or graph style paper simply because my straight lines are not so straight.   First, you sketch out a few looks in both Portrait and Landscape modes.  Then you roughly put together each scene or screen as you expect the user would see.  This sounds weird, you have to picture how you would use the App. 

 I imagine a cartoonist would get the concept right away for some reason..  

You have to have some vision of what you would like to see in an App.  You use this vision or scenario to build the screen prototypes using code.  The vision is also kind of necessary in order to invest the time to build it.  Simply put, unless you are getting paid to implement someone else's vision, only you will take time to implement your own vision. This hopefully gives you the drive to complete it.   Sometimes your vision is just too much work.

I try to remember that in the end, even when you have the product ready, it could use some improvements.  Ask any of my customers or managers,  "Trust me, it needs improvement..."

Minor Music Side note

Tonights music was mostly 80's rock.  I love rocking out and coding, but within limits.   Let me explain.  If it is early in the morning, or really any time, Classical is my preferred programing music.   It is nice to hear in the background and there is no danger of singing along with the chorus.   That said, if you are are looking for some extra energy at night, some Ronnie James Dio might be just the ticket. Hey,  I like 80's rock.   A lot.  Of course, this era is right in my 'older programmer' wheelhouse.   So be it.   Everyone has their favorite.  

Now GET OFF MY LAWN!