Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game

itunes.apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 191 posts

Re: Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game

#41

Post by pooriaazimi »

ruswick wrote: post #34
pacomerh wrote: post #26

Sometimes I'm a bit skeptical about these kinds of posts "I'm X age, I made this". I feel like, why would a 14 year old want to make sure his age is on the post title?. It's not that extraordinary I think, I mean it's great that his doing this, but it's not that un-ordinary, sometimes it seems like someone else is driving this for promo.

I agree. If you've made a good app, its merit will stand on its own. The fact that people believe their age to be the most remarkable aspect of the development of their product raises flags. If any things, it just seems like an attempt to artificially lower standards. Your age doesn't matter. Your product does.

> Your age doesn't matter. Your product does.

Product? It's a kid just learning to program and it's his/her first app (and is free). It's not a product!!! Just a typical "Show HN".

Re: Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game

#42

Post by zobzu »

bitcartel wrote: post #36
zobzu wrote: post #28

I was doing 68k asm at 14. Kids those days! :) (now then again anyone who's done 68k asm would know this is extremely easy to code and understand, more than objective-c in fact. But then again, I had Codewarrior [which I won at metrowerks] and powerplant, and those, are hell.)

Amiga coders will remember Seka, Devpac and AsmOne... one wrong move and it was Guru Meditation!

Wished to have more machines.. Dad had a Mac tho, so, I used that;-)

Re: Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game

#43

Post by jaf12duke »

pacomerh wrote: post #26

Sometimes I'm a bit skeptical about these kinds of posts "I'm X age, I made this". I feel like, why would a 14 year old want to make sure his age is on the post title?. It's not that extraordinary I think, I mean it's great that his doing this, but it's not that un-ordinary, sometimes it seems like someone else is driving this for promo.

It's not like there's an overwhelming number of 14 year olds making games right now and posting that they did on Hacker News. It's okay, every once in awhile, for our HN community to join together and simply applaud a young teenager who's going after it.

It's kind of like he's asking for early admission to our special club. We can parse his message if we so choose, but the overwhelming feeling I have for any 14 year old that launches his first game is simply to say congrats.

With that said, Jonah is my cousin and my cup runneth over.

Re: Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game

#44

Post by ceol »

ruswick wrote: post #34
pacomerh wrote: post #26

Sometimes I'm a bit skeptical about these kinds of posts "I'm X age, I made this". I feel like, why would a 14 year old want to make sure his age is on the post title?. It's not that extraordinary I think, I mean it's great that his doing this, but it's not that un-ordinary, sometimes it seems like someone else is driving this for promo.

I agree. If you've made a good app, its merit will stand on its own. The fact that people believe their age to be the most remarkable aspect of the development of their product raises flags. If any things, it just seems like an attempt to artificially lower standards. Your age doesn't matter. Your product does.

I'm pretty sure your age matters if it drastically deviates from the norm. What were most of us doing at 14? Playing videogames, trying to survive high school and puberty...

This kid publishes a freakin' iPhone game— a good one, at that!— and people are shitting on him for it? C'mon.

Re: Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game

#47

Post by tisme »

A very heartfelt congratulations, I would give up a lot to trade with you at the moment, you must be feeling on top of the world.

Games are a great area to work in, you get to learn a lot more about systems level programming from building a game than you'd get from building a web-app. Games are never finished either, you can always improve on them, add levels and so on so they're a great way to grow your skills in managing progressively larger codebases.

Once again, congratulations! And I hope to see much more of what you've made here.

Re: Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game

#48

Post by nirvana »

gnarbarian wrote: post #30
pooriaazimi wrote: post #24

I was writing/learning HTML with FrontPage 2003 and Flash 5 (6? 7? I thankfully don't remember anymore) when I was 14 - while knowing almost no English (thus, not understanding even what the menu items and controls mean!) and without a manual or teacher and just clicking around and seeing what happens to the code :-( Hard, hard times it was. But I enjoyed it nevertheless. But still, I'm jealous of you. If you were to…

Get off my lawn. I first learned HTML and JavaScript using Notepad in 96 when I was 14.

When I was 14, you couldn't just go buy a "personal computer", as the minicomputer revolution was underway. So, I had to build my own computer... and I did. (I think I started at 13, and finished at 15).

When I say, I built my computer, I mean I designed a PCB, laid it out, etched it, assembled it, then needed to build a display board to output to a TV, which was another several months of design, etc. And when I had all that... then I had to start writing some sort of software for it! (EG: I had to write software, build an EPROM programmer (because they were expensive) burn EPROMS ..... all to get to the point where I could start working on making an implementation of BASIC!

So, when people complain that "kids can't hack on iPhones" ... well, I think its silly. You buy a Mac and you get a fantastic IDE and development platform for free, etc.

To the OP: Congrats on making your game! It looks very professional. Keep at it!

Post reply on HN