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Show HN: I learned Rails and Objective-C in a year to build this

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Show HN: I learned Rails and Objective-C in a year to build this

#1

Post by jpn »

What I built: Bonjournal, a travel journal app

- iOS app (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bonjournal/id719266933)

- web app (https://bonjourn.al)

What and how I learned (in order of importance):

* Ruby on Rails *

- Michael Hartl's Ruby On Rails Tutorial

- Railscast

- Code School

- Ruby Toolbox

* Objective-C *

- Nerd Ranch iOS Programming

- NSScreencast

- Code School

- WWDC Videos (for performance improvements)

- CocoaPods Rank (https://gist.github.com/luvtechno/8842522)

And of course, a lot of Stack Overflow.

I didn't think it would be possible. I thought I was too old to learn. But I had a project in mind that I cared about, and I wanted to see it completed.

It's never been easier to learn -- go out there and create!

Special thanks to my wife, who is also my designer. Besides all the wireframes, marketing, and testing she has done, she also learned a little SASS and Objective C to make all those little pixel and font size adjustments. That was HUGE.

Re: Show HN: I learned Rails and Objective-C in a year to build this

#2

Post by hansy »

I still affirm that Michael Hartl's "Ruby On Rails Tutorial" (http://www.railstutorial.org/book) is one of the most beautifully simplistic and effective tutorial books ever written. Combine his book with Ryan Bates's Railscasts (http://railscasts.com/) and you can pretty much build anything you can think of. I learned RoR we these resources as well and am just starting to take the plunge into iOS. I haven't looked into NSScreencasts much, but I did obtain a copy of The Big Nerd Ranch Guide to iOS Programming (http://www.amazon.com/iOS-Programming-Ranch-Edition-Guides/d...).

Anyway, congrats on launching both an iOS and web application. Bonjournal looks awesome!

Re: Show HN: I learned Rails and Objective-C in a year to build this

#4

Post by AndrewTerry »

You say that you took a year to learn RoR and Objective-C for this, but can I ask: were you starting from scratch as a programmer and was this a full-time project (or were you balancing your learning and development alongside having another job)?

Congrats on the launch! Both the app and the website look beautiful.

Re: Show HN: I learned Rails and Objective-C in a year to build this

#7

Post by jpn »

hansy wrote: post #2

I still affirm that Michael Hartl's "Ruby On Rails Tutorial" ( http://www.railstutorial.org/book ) is one of the most beautifully simplistic and effective tutorial books ever written. Combine his book with Ryan Bates's Railscasts ( http://railscasts.com/ ) and you can pretty much build anything you can think of. I learned RoR we these resources as well and am just starting to take the plunge into iOS. I haven't looke…

Thanks!

Good luck with iOS. NSScreencast is not as useful as Railscast, but there are some pretty useful tips. For example, I thought this episode was really helpful starting off:

http://nsscreencast.com/episodes/63-from-scratch

I've also been hearing great things about Treehouse, which I plan to use when I tackle Android:

http://teamtreehouse.com/

Re: Show HN: I learned Rails and Objective-C in a year to build this

#8

Post by jpn »

AndrewTerry wrote: post #4

You say that you took a year to learn RoR and Objective-C for this, but can I ask: were you starting from scratch as a programmer and was this a full-time project (or were you balancing your learning and development alongside having another job)? Congrats on the launch! Both the app and the website look beautiful.

Thanks!

I basically started from just Excel/VBA and a little bit of .NET.

Initially, I was doing this along with another project, but during the second half, it was full-time.

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