457 wwdc08 student welcome

Community, Career & Coding

Jonathan “Wolf” Rentzsch

Friday, February 6, 2009

Three Topics• Community• Career• Coding

Friday, February 6, 2009

Community

Friday, February 6, 2009

Friday, February 6, 2009

PSIG

Friday, February 6, 2009

PSIG• TIP Start your own group• “Programming Special Interest Group”• Started in 1996• Unbelievably naïve• Undeniably the reason I’m standing in front of you today• “Unprofessional” Format

■ Extremely welcoming and friendly■ Roundtable■ Everyone Shows & Tells■ Think: Cheers but with Geeks■ Easily function without a main presentation at all

■ Chronically late meeting notices

Friday, February 6, 2009

• Advantages:■ Developed presentation skills■ Learned how to gently keep a meeting on-track. Kinda■ Alpha-geek cred■ Invaluable flailing■ Camaraderie (Pizza Jaunt)■ Professional give and take

PSIG

Friday, February 6, 2009

Friday, February 6, 2009

Chicago Cocoaheads

Friday, February 6, 2009

Chicago CocoaHeads• TIP You don’t have to start your own group• Joined in 1999

■ Started by Bob Frank■ Made C4 possible

■ Currently co-lead the group■ Valuable lesson infiltrating a group & installing puppet regime

• TIP Volunteer to give talks■ Highly valuable to frazzled organizers■ 10 minute stand-up■ What are you working on?■ No need to be an expert

Friday, February 6, 2009

Friday, February 6, 2009

C4

Friday, February 6, 2009

C4• Indie Mac conference

■ 100th PSIG meeting; born in the ashes of MacHack

• Small• Single-track• Hand-picked presenters• Tons of schmooze time• Hack contest• Assumed failure• Nearly knifed the baby• TIP do big things – just harden against worst-case

Friday, February 6, 2009

You, Superstar• Know yourself

■ Is fame for you?■ Prefer “man behind the curtain?”

• Build a reputation■ Blog■ Trademark■ Meatspace and online groups■ Join an open source project■ Non-code:

■ Website, icons, design, UI■ Documentation■ Mailing list support

Friday, February 6, 2009

Let’s not call it Marketing• A natural programmer aversion to marketing?• Become famous enough so you can do Important Work• You have a blog, right?

■ No, really■ I mean it

• Blog:■ Learning■ Sample code■ Small free apps

■ Walking resumé

• Control your “Google Image”

Friday, February 6, 2009

Community• Online

■ Twitter, Facebook■ Student Dev■ Iron Coder

• Internet ≠ Meatspace substitute■ WWDC, Bar Camp, iPhone Dev Camp, C4

Friday, February 6, 2009

• Get enough of a (good) reputation, and you’ll get a call• Kind of goes against common coder ideals• Mostly harmless, just a desire for better Signal vs. Noise

Secret Societies

Friday, February 6, 2009

Career

Friday, February 6, 2009

General Career Directions• Big company• Small company• Aside: Apple’s hybrid structure• Venture-backed Startup• Indie

■ Mac and iPhone indie■ Web indie

• Contractor/Consultant• Live at home in parent’s basement

Friday, February 6, 2009

Going Indie• Most romantic• Spend “too much time” writing great software• Best routes to indiehood:

■ Contracting■ Big company (build up cash reserves and networking)

■ TIP beware intellectual property issues■ Probably not traditional small company■ Though indie small company rocks

Friday, February 6, 2009

Coding

Friday, February 6, 2009

Coding• Non-negotiable: use version control

■ Even for your small personal projects you never intend to share■ Changes the way you program■ Sample code hacking■ Probably use a popular modern DVCS (git, mercurial, bazaar)

Friday, February 6, 2009

Coding• Use Assertions

■ Design-by-contract > assertions > unit testing■ Automatic bug detection

• Understand Unicode■ No such thing as “plain text”■ Or cheat and just always use UTF-8 for everything

Friday, February 6, 2009

(Carpe diem) x 5• TIP Network, network, network

■ Break out of your clique■ Career fair tonight■ Inter-session all week■ After-hours parties■ After-party pub crawls■ Official beer bash

• Participate in Hands-on Sessions• Bring a buggy project to the labs• Get a human interface review

• TIP Go deep on a favorite tech• TIP Start or Join a (Group|Project)

Friday, February 6, 2009

Friday, February 6, 2009