App Stories | Tales to Inspire A New Generation of Developers:
What was the first app you created and what did it do? Back in 1975, the first app I wrote made the LEDs on the front of an IMSAI 8080 blink in fancy patterns.
It was a painstaking process. There was no development environment like Xcode: I had to compile the code by hand and enter it using switches on the front of the computer. There was no debugger and it took me weeks to get it right.
But when I did, there was a sense of accomplishment that I’d never experienced before. There will be many times in the development of an app where you want to give up because it’s just so damn HARD. But don’t: the feeling you get when everything works will make it all worthwhile.
Yes, that. Exactly. Only in my case, it was about 1978. At the time, I was a theater major heading rapidly towards a non-voluntary vacation from college (and a side trip through the local community college), and I took this weird programming class because I could do that and avoid taking real math class.
And I sat down in front of a computer for the first time, and had that “where have you BEEN all my life?” moment.
Got an A in the programming class, flunked every other class that semester (including a PE class. that’s hard to do) and never looked back.